The Years Together
by NastElilBuggr
Summary: All that Shelby wants is a family, but she has no idea what she's getting herself into.
1. An Unexpected Twister of Fate, Part 1

**Hi everyone! I know it's been a while and I hated being apart from you. But as promised I've been working on a one-shot to follow up my series (This Hell I'm Living, So Different Now from What It Seemed, The Joke's on You and most recently, The Dream I Dreamed), and I have ideas for more, some of them inspired by suggestions a couple of you gave me in reviews to my last story! I want to drop a thanks to Cissy Black Malfoy for helping me talk through this chapter to work out the kinks. This is going to be a two-parter, because apparently I suck at one-shots.**

**I know you didn't come here to come here to listen to me blather, but since I have your attention I wanted to say that _I saw Idina Menzel in concert and it was AMAZING! _By far the best concert I've ever been to in my life. Now that that's out of my system, here you go. I hope you like it.**

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**An Unexpected Twister of Fate**

"You know Rachel, I really wanted us to become closer to one another tonight, but this is too much too fast and I'm really uncomfortable right now."

"Does that mean you're giving up on this?"

Shelby's gaze met her daughter's big brown eyes and she gritted her teeth as she tried to retain her composure. This had not been part of the plan. When Rachel had invited her and Beth over to dinner at the Berrys' the week before, she never anticipated the position she would end up in or how much she would be straining, doing everything in her power just to stay upright.

"Never," Shelby told her seriously, her eyebrows raising just enough to powerfully emphasize her commitment. She would not give up.

"Right hand red!"

Shelby groaned loudly. Sliding her hand as carefully as she could to one of the red, plastic circles, she shook some the hair that fell out of her clip away from her eyes and looked over at the grinning face mere inches away from her own. She and Rachel had been battling it out on the Twister mat for almost ten minutes at this point and for another three minutes before that when Thomas Berry had attempted to play as well. Considering that the man was over six feet tall, Shelby had been impressed that he had survived as long as he had before his huge, gangly form toppled out of the game, but the real game only truly began when it was just the two perfectionists left on the mat. Ephraim was in charge of the spinner and had been alternating between gleefully calling out each spin's result and cooing at tiny baby Beth on the couch. (Though at this point, Shelby was certain his focus on the baby was only a ruse, for he had to have been purposely making this as difficult for her as possible.)

When Rachel walked into the room coyly clutching the Twister box a quarter hour before, Shelby foolishly agreed, remembering her love of the game from her youth and having adopted a "go with the flow" attitude much earlier that afternoon. Rachel's too wide smile at her easy-going "Sure" and the heavy, dramatic sighs by the Berry men should have been a big hint of what she was about to get into. The thing was, she forgot Rachel was a trained dancer. Occasionally doing yoga did not give her enough game to compete with the incredibly flexible teenager, but Shelby was too stubborn to admit this.

"Right foot yellow!"

"Ah, shit," Shelby grumbled, curling herself over her daughter in order to reach the yellow circle. Shelby was annoyed; Rachel hardly seemed to be struggling from where she was stretched out crab-like below her, while the older woman's limbs were starting to visibly shake from exertion.

"I won't think anything less of you if you find that you can't continue," Rachel said easily from somewhere near her shoulder. Heat was filling her face and her pulse was pounding in her ears, but Shelby was positive it wasn't because of Rachel's jibe. She wasn't so easily intimidated.

"I'm not—" Shelby grunted, tossing her head back to glare at a distracted Ephraim, who was preventing her from potentially moving to a more comfortable position. "—going to let you win that easily."

"Clearly," Thomas interjected amusedly between bites of popcorn from his seat next to Ephraim, who had apparently totally forgotten about his job as spinner and was now preoccupied with playing with Beth's tiny feet. "I have to say Shelby, no one's given Rachel a run like this before. You play this game often?"

"Not since college," Shelby said, trying not to think too much about her jean-clad ass sticking up in the air in the African-American's direction. "But back then it was Strip Twister, and if I don't remember right, alcohol was involved."

Then it was horribly quiet. Rachel, who had a better view of her fathers' faces, seemed to be holding back a laugh. Shelby just closed her eyes and sighed, wondering why she kept sticking her foot in her mouth that evening.

This was just one of the many uncomfortable moments of this day spent with the Berrys, so by now Shelby was becoming more or less immune. It had started the moment Rachel had answered the door to her and two-week-old baby Beth. But that instance of tension when Rachel's eyes focused on the child was interrupted when Ephraim rushed between them with an enthusiastic, "Hi Shelby baby! Come on in!" and took Beth from her mother's arms, leaving a stunned Shelby alone with Rachel while he ran off to fuss over the baby with his partner.

It was then that she knew that despite only having spent a week with her new daughter, her heart was already becoming attached to the little girl. She really did not like not having her baby taken from her.

"You might not get her back for a while," Rachel told her factually, her voice subdued, and moved aside to allow Shelby to come in. There had always been an invisible boundary that had existed only for her which kept her from her daughter for so many years, but she was too anxious about the loss of her baby from her arms to comprehend the significance of that first step inside of the house. When it finally did hit her, she was so pleased that she boldly pulled Rachel into her side for a hug, who gasped in surprise.

Considering their history, Shelby held her daughter for as long as she dared, which was only a few seconds. When she let go she caught Rachel's eye and said with only a hint of embarrassment, "Sorry. I just really wanted to do that."

Rachel smiled slowly and prettily. "It's okay."

She looked beautiful in a yellow and white sun dress, and for the umpteenth time that day Shelby wondered if her choice of dark designer jeans, form-fitting black tee, a belted black jacket and a set of heels was appropriate, not knowing whether she ought to have dressed formally or casually. She would quickly forget about her outfit.

"Oh dear god."

She had just noticed that the entire foyer was covered in various pink and yellow baby decorations, from the large banner above the staircase that read, "CONGRATULATIONS!" with cartoon images of pacifiers and rattles surrounding it to the streamers and "It's a girl!" balloons that were strung everywhere. Looking down, the hardwood floor was coated in a layer of pastel-colored confetti in the shape of rocking horses and safety pins. It looked like some baby-shower decorator had spontaneously combusted or something equally appalling.

"Daddy has the tendency to get a little carried away."

"A little?"

Shelby was surprised that the confetti that continued down the hall to the kitchen didn't muffle the approaching footsteps of the two Berry men. She froze a bit in place as she looked up at Thomas Berry for the first time in years and remembered a time from long ago: When she was just 22 years of age, she stood in the entryway of a smaller house than this and greeted the interracial gay couple for the first time and felt just as nervous upon the dark, scrutinizing glare of an overprotective man wanting to safeguard his home and family.

She took him in. At a little over 6 feet, Thomas Berry wasn't overly tall by most standards, but considering that the next tallest person in the group was Ephraim Berry at about 5' 7", he towered over everyone. While he used to be clean-shaven, he now had a trimmed mustache and a soul patch, and his short hairstyle differed greatly from the inch-tall fade he sported back when _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ was a weekly tradition. His pale orange polo shirt matched the plaid orange and pink pattern on his white shorts which matched his white slip-on shoes, all of which at a glance reminded Shelby of yachting or mini-golfing.

Sixteen years ago, she would have cracked a joke about it all, but a great deal of time had passed and there was a certain amount of tension that made such comments inappropriate. And she would have been dishonest if she said that she wasn't at all bitter towards the man who was most resolute in the surrogacy arrangement. If it wasn't for him, she might have been able to see her daughter years before, for Ephraim's sensitivity and kindness had always meant that he was malleable as putty in Shelby's shrewd grip.

"Hello Shelby," Thomas said, his deep voice aurally pleasant to her well-trained ears but his tone heavy in an indecipherable subtext. The tension was palpable and Shelby was certain that Rachel and Ephraim, whose gaze moved from the baby in his arms over his glasses to his partner, noticed it too.

She was far too old and, thanks mostly to Beth's still-irregular sleep schedule, too tired to put up with any latent hostility or distrust from him or anyone else that day. She was invited to be in this home and she wasn't going to put up with any of this passive-aggressive, gay-man-drama bullshit while she was there.

"Look," Shelby said brashly, holding out a hand between them. "Let's get something straight: I'm not here with some underhanded, manipulative scheme to steal your daughter or anything just as outrageous. But I won't lie: I still feel the same way. I want to know Rachel and I want her to know me. If you have a problem with that, say it now so I don't have to fake nice all day because right now I'm basically only running on too much coffee and Red Bull and I really don't have it in me."

Rachel gasped dramatically at her side, but Shelby didn't remove her eyes from Thomas's dark ones. She could swear his upper lip was curling with disdain and in moments all hell would break loose, but to her eternal surprise that lip continued upward and she was dazzled with his bright smile and a big, deep laugh. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" he asked delightfully, clapping her on the shoulder.

Shelby gaped, Ephraim grinned, and Rachel giggled.

"Can I give you a hug?" Thomas asked. He didn't wait for her permission. She was suddenly yanked against his chest and a loud "Oof!" escaped from her. She remained limp while he squeezed enthusiastically, watching Rachel bounce and clap giddily out of her peripheral vision.

Shelby wasn't sure what it was about her that made the Berry men want to hug her unexpectedly, but she was inexplicably hopeful that she'd get used to it.

But she wasn't to that point yet. She eventually worked up the nerve to gently push the man away from her and give him a bewildered expression. She wasn't crazy to believe that things were too complicated for such a simple, pleasant reunion. The only times she had talked to Thomas Berry in the last 16 years, he had told her to respect their contract and stay away from her own child.

"What was that for?" Shelby asked guardedly, her brows pulling together over her unwavering gaze.

"Come on, Shelby…" Ephraim said, clearly disappointed she wasn't willing to play along, but Thomas held up a hand to silence his partner and he looked back at the woman in front of him.

"No E, it's deserved," Thomas told her with a small shrug of his wide shoulders. He stared intently at her. "Be honest with us Shelby, have you ever wondered how I've been able to sleep at night since we cut you out of our lives?"

"The thought crossed my mind more than once," Shelby responded, her resentment leaking out in her tone. Why not? He admitted it was deserved.

"It was quite simple, actually. I had to stop regarding you as a friend and remind myself it was all just business."

Shelby felt horribly uncomfortable hearing what she knew to be true, if only because it was being told to her while she was standing in the Berry's foyer while one of the helium-filled balloons kept bumping into the back of her head. She threw a hand back to knock it away and she asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just because it was simple doesn't mean it was easy," Thomas said meaningfully. "Do you remember what we were doing the night you started going into labor with Rachel? We were watching the Newsies on VHS, and you insisted that we try out the fondue pot you got us for Hanukkah that year. Remember? We used to always have so much fun together, but I had moved on from those memories. That is, until you had some talk with Ephraim a few weeks back. He hasn't been able to shut up about you ever since."

"It's true," Ephraim admitted, completely unabashed.

"Now that you and Rachel know one another, it isn't fair to keep asking you to stay away any longer. Things will always be complicated between us, Shelby, I understand that, and I'd understand if you don't forgive us. But I don't regret hugging you. Despite my long-lived denial, you've had a special place in our hearts both as the mother of our child as well as our friend."

Thomas, Ephraim and Rachel continued to look at her expectantly for quite a few long moments, perhaps awaiting some sort of touching display of sentiment or any emotion at all, but Shelby just stood still, impassive. This moment was sixteen years in the making, but just as she and Rachel didn't have their slow-motion, joyous reunion as she expected, Thomas's heart-felt admission of guilt didn't cause the sort of satisfaction she figured she would feel. But then she looked over at Beth and Rachel, who were less than a foot away from one another, and Shelby realized that even after 16 years of tears and frustration she was ready to let go of any lingering ill will.

Her dark gaze stayed on Rachel, even as she further pondered how she should respond to Thomas. She didn't want to pretend that forgiving her fathers was an easy thing to do, but she was going to anyway. All that she wanted in coming over here this day was to be with Rachel, and just as her dads had always prevented them from being together before, now they were necessary in allowing Shelby to have a relationship with her own daughter. Out of everything Thomas said, Shelby cared most about the fact that he admitted it wasn't fair to keep her away from Rachel any longer. It gave her hope.

So Shelby decided that she would put her pride aside and play along with the Berry's festivities and pleasantries. She could do that for a day. This particular one felt like a tryout, and despite her lackluster career Shelby knew how to nail an audition. And she was about to smile genially to Thomas, knowing that if she did they could put this difficult moment behind them, but before she did Ephraim had to say the one thing that she had wanted to hear Rachel's entire life:

"We want you to know that you are welcome in this house."

In the midst of this nothing she was feeling, at Ephraim's words she felt a twinge within her. Ephraim's statement made her realize that today _wasn't _an audition like she thought, for if there was any test she had already passed it as far as they were concerned. And she felt an overwhelming wave of relief, for the months of hell had worn her down so much and she had been alone for so long.

It was then she felt moisture in her eyes, which she tried to blink away before any of them noticed. Such a moment of vulnerability was not something she would accept from herself, especially since Ephraim had already seen her cry once not too long ago.

For the most part, Shelby wasn't very good at emotions, at least not the real ones. She always thought she was really adept at portraying them in her acting or through song, but she spent a few years trying to make it on Broadway and she never could relate to the expressive bohemians surrounding her. Perhaps Will Schuester was exactly right when he called her "hard", but she had been numb for so long she wasn't sure if she had been born like that or if it was something she picked up, perhaps from losing the daughter she carried within her so many years ago. She was usually good at containing what she did feel – after all, what good did it do her to weep and whine like a child? – but before the last few weeks she hadn't been so challenged. Ever since she cried uncontrollably in her car following her depressing meeting with Rachel on McKinley's stage, she had been less capable of restraining her feelings. And that showed when Ephraim gestured cordially to his absurdly decorated home with his empty arm.

"Shelby?" Rachel asked quietly, and the older woman felt small fingers wrap around her elbow. But when Shelby placed her own hand on top of her teenage daughter's, she had nothing available to wipe the rebellious tear away as it cascaded over her eyelid and clung to her skin.

"Oh sweetie, don't cry," Ephraim said, taking a step forwards sympathetically.

"I'm fine," she said to him dismissively, and her locked gaze with Ephraim was surprisingly evocative. It seemed that even though they had only seen each other once in the last a decade or so, their reunion after Rachel's egging impacted Shelby more than she realized. It was almost like he was her friend again, and he clearly thought of her the same way—truthfully, it left her a little uneasy. But he was smiling, and despite her trepidation, she reciprocated.

Thomas laughed kindly at her, and this time, when he reached out for another hug, Shelby rolled her eyes and went along with it. Well, as best as she could; people don't change that quickly. It only became that much harder for Shelby to withstand the affectionate gesture when Rachel happily collided into them from the side and Ephraim joined in as much as he dared due to the slumbering baby in his arm.

Just another uncomfortable moment to add to the list.

"Okay, okay, get off of me," she said to them irritably, but the effect was ruined by the fact that it was mumbled as she was stuck talking into Thomas's polo shirt. But she wasn't angry; in fact, she felt good enough in their embrace that she waited a few beats before loudly uttering the cliché, "Do I smell something burning?", sending Thomas and Rachel scurrying frantically to the kitchen to check on food they were preparing. The Jewish man lingered with Shelby in the foyer, probably just so he could send an astute and cheerful smile her way.

She resisted the urge to glare at his unsettling positivity. Instead, she smiled sweetly in return – well, in the way antifreeze was sweet. "Ephraim?"

"Yes Shelby?"

She decided that if this was what it would be like to be friends with her daughter's parents, she could get used to it.

"Give me back my baby."


	2. An Unexpected Twister of Fate, Part 2

**Hey everyone! I know it's been a while and I'm sorry. Admittedly, I found this chapter more challenging to write than expected, for I had to try to balance some complicated Shelby stuff with a lighter story. Also, there was a point in time when I was rather discouraged from writing as someone mentioned in response to my other story that I had "occasional typos" throughout it without specifying what they were, so as any writer such as myself would respond, I became paranoid and very hard on myself (and also aware of my apparent oversensitivity lol). I only mention this because I hope that if any of you ever encounter any mistakes that bother you that you will PM me about them so I won't end up stewing again in my own perfectionism and ignorance. ) haha. Enjoy everyone, I really hope you like it.**

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**An Unexpected Twister of Fate, Pt. 2**

Despite their best efforts, Beth awoke in Shelby's arms as Ephraim helped her remove her coat. Ephraim, judging by how his face screwed up around his large nose upon noticing her eyes open, clearly expected the baby to wail her little lungs out upon waking, and it was with amusement at him that Shelby shushed her adopted baby's tiny whimpers.

"I take it Rachel wasn't such a quiet baby."

"Are you kidding? She was a menace!" he hissed at her, pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and surreptitiously glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone in that moment . His dark eyes refocused on hers with incredible seriousness. "She developed that voice of hers within days! And her lung capacity. And her volume."

As much as Shelby should have been hurt upon hearing what the child was like shortly after she had been taken away from her years before, instead she was petty and jaded. Her expression to him was one of evil satisfaction, knowing karma had been a vindictive bitch.

He didn't seem to notice this however, especially when he turned and said brightly, "Speak of the angel!" Rachel ducked easily under his arm and bobbed up in time for Ephraim to kiss her soundly on the head.

"Papa had been worried that the ribs were burning but they weren't," Rachel explained to them straightforwardly.

Shelby frowned. "Ribs?"

"Baby back ribs along with new potatoes and baby carrots!" Rachel said with a smile. "The baby-themed foods were Daddy's idea."

Shelby ignored the absurdity of that and instead asked, "You're okay with us having ribs?"

"My veganism is still in its early stages and it may be a while yet before I expect other people to adopt my more responsible and ultimately more superior lifestyle."

"Ah," Shelby said, sharing a look with Ephraim.

Rachel followed her gaze and forced her father to look at her. "Daddy, if I leave you in charge of helping Papa with the food, will you promise to follow the recipes?"

"Only if you don't expect the food to taste good."

"Daddy!" Rachel whined at him. "I carefully organized the recipes and labeled and color-coded a timeline for today so all of the foods would be ready at the same time! Just make sure Papa puts the potatoes and tempeh on the grill at the specified time and make sure the carrots don't burn in the oven!"

"Whatever you say dear," he said to her with a sweet smile and another kiss on the top of her head, and her expressive eyes were worried as he sauntered to the kitchen.

"Take a deep breath," Rachel told herself as she turned back around, using breathing techniques usually meant to settle nerves before a performance. She then looked back up at her mother. "I can't be held accountable for the food past this point. Fortunately for you the ribs should be good, as barbecuing meat is Papa's sole culinary skill…"

"Where did you learn to cook?"

"Food Network," Rachel said, as though that should have been obvious. "Lately, however, I've been relying on cookbooks in order to accommodate my restricted diet."

Shelby nodded, unable to add anything to the already exhausted conversation. Rachel fidgeted too, and with nothing more to say the two women just stared at each other in apprehensive anticipation.

Shelby took the moment to go back over the last half an hour in her mind. How things had progressed so far with Rachel's fathers had certainly been unexpected. She didn't expect the men to acknowledge her much, let alone embrace her figuratively and physically. And while they so far had been very pleasant towards her, she still felt wary, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She decided to break the quiet with a humor-laced observation. She hoped it wouldn't offend Rachel. "So how much of your papa's speech do you think had been rehearsed?"

"Oh, most of it, I'm sure," Rachel said, and continued using the confident tone she had previously used in regards to her veganism that seemed to dare anyone to disagree with her. "His articulation and pacing of his words seemed far too controlled for improvisation."

"That's what I thought," Shelby said, her eyes twinkling down as the corners of her lips rose to mirror the identically full ones in front of her. She felt a rush of joy at their simple shared moment.

"Do you want to see my room?" she asked, her voice hopeful.

Shelby's pulsing heart felt as though it had fallen down towards her stomach a little. Rachel's timidity reminded her of another shared moment between them, when Rachel asked her another seemingly simple question: to sing a song with her before Shelby would walk out of her life indefinitely.

Would it always come back to that? Even if things could somehow manage to be good between them, would she always be waiting for the bottom to drop out?

"I'd like that," Shelby said quietly, and as she followed Rachel up the stained hardwood stairs she cradled the drowsy baby closer to her, needing the comfort of Beth's warmth and smell.

The hardwood stopped at the top step and Shelby's heels became muffled at the sandy carpet that lined the upper floor. The walls were a dull teal and the decorations were classy but unpretentious, and Shelby had a moment in which she imagined a young, dark-haired girl running down the hallway squealing with delight into her bedroom. But out of the four doors she saw, Shelby didn't know which one was the room her daughter grew up in and that killed her.

Rachel turned into the first door and waited just inside, allowing her mother a moment to process all of the details. Shelby had a vague idea of what Rachel's room was like from the MySpace videos of her singing by herself at different angles in the safety of her bedroom, but she wasn't able to truly appreciate or absorb everything until now. The room was painted yellow with impersonal pictures of flowers and the like decorating the walls. In the center was her white four-poster bed with its pink pillows and patterned red comforter. Turning to look at the painted pink desk, she saw all of the pink and purple decorations that any father would buy for his princess (and Rachel had two). Contrasting the decorations on the opposite wall were Broadway posters, homemade banners from competitions in her childhood, and trinkets of which Shelby could not guess the meaning. And there, on that desk, surrounded by a stack of sheet music, a couple of thick books (the top one of which was titled _I'm the Greatest Star: Broadway's Top Musical Legends from 1900 to Today_)and her bejeweled CD player, was her laptop, the only access Shelby had had into her daughter's life before Rachel showed up at that Vocal Adrenaline rehearsal weeks before.

The experience of finally seeing the bedroom in person was more than just visual. After kicking off her heels near the door, she was able to feel under her toes the carpet fibers Rachel might have crawled on years before. The smell of fabric softener entered her nose from the bedding that she could imagine was tucked around Rachel every night before she drifted off into dreams of stardom.

It all felt so unfamiliar. She never felt like more of a stranger in her life.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked concernedly.

She wasn't okay. Despite her epiphany that the Berry men accepted her, that didn't change anything that had transpired between mother and daughter since their reunion. Considering everything, including their last conversation before this point, there was no reason for Rachel to even want her in her life let alone in her bedroom. Their relationship was a disaster and pretending it wasn't didn't fix anything.

She lived her life for so long relying on her intellect and instincts, pushing her useless, frustrating emotions away. When she was young, every time she got in trouble her parents would sit her down and sternly reason with her. It wasn't until she was an adolescent that she had begun to develop her strong mind upon realizing her parents' logic was often flawed and biased. While she always loved them, there was a connection missing that she had always longed for. When she fell in love with Scott in her late twenties, it was unexpected and surreal; she feared the intensity of her emotions, her cynicism at the time reminding her about how harsh the emptiness was from losing something to which she had become so intimately attached. Her fears ended up being valid, and when Scott left her life she handled the heartbreak the only way she knew how: she ignored it.

She recognized that she was out on her own and reminded herself to not lose her heart but use her head, for it had never lead her astray. It got to a point after a few years of solitude that she wasn't even sure she had a heart anymore. Rachel's assessment of Vocal Adrenaline's heartless performance at Regionals may not have been directed at her, but Shelby figured it should have been. If she did have one after all of these years of disuse, it must have become withered and petrified. That would certainly explain why its functioning seemed to hurt so damned much.

She tried to prepare herself for the inevitable changes in store when she met Rachel, but Shelby could never have imagined exactly how persistent and powerful her emotions would be after spending so many years with them so repressed. The feelings she had were confusing and distracting and irrepressible, and for someone who spent so much time in her head, the aching of her insides translated into her mind as little more than chronic upset stomach.

Rachel, on the other hand, had a heart bigger than she knew what to do with, and because of that Shelby was ill-equipped to be the person Rachel needed her to be. She couldn't imagine that Rachel ever expected her biological mother to be the cold, calculating woman in front of her, yet that was reality. Their inherent disconnection was left unchanged since the first day they talked in Carmel's auditorium, and the realization made Shelby's gut clench even more.

"I'm fine," she lied, once again dealing with her pessimistic feelings by pushing them out of her mind. She looked back up at her brown-eyed daughter and knew that her heavy thoughts were more than a 16-year-old girl should deal with.

Seeing how the bed was between her and Rachel, Shelby took a seat upon it and nodded for Rachel to do the same, smiling kindly to prove that she wasn't upset. The girl's movements were slow and hesitant as she sat on the opposite corner and hugged one of her pillows to her chest; Shelby wondered if it was she who made Rachel apprehensive, that maybe she was no better at hiding her distress than her expressive daughter, only until she realized that Rachel was fixedly eyeing the baby cradled in her arms.

"She looks like Quinn," Rachel said, her gaze flickering up to Shelby's fleetingly before they moved to the hands and the pillow in her lap. "Does it bother you that she'll never look like you?"

How was she supposed to respond to that? At least in talking to Rachel more and more, Shelby was becoming more capable at remaining sensible. Still, there was always that pesky decision about how much she should tell Rachel, lest she accidentally share the burden of her baggage with the teenager. In the end, she reasoned she ought to try to be as true to herself as possible and just censor what she could.

"I thought it would," Shelby replied, her fingers playing with Beth's responsive hands while her gaze examined the face that Rachel accurately acknowledged would never look like the mother she'd come to know. "But the moment I walked out of that hospital with her it didn't matter what she looked like. She depended on me, completely, and just because someone else gave birth to her doesn't change that." She knew what the root of Rachel's discomfort was and it wasn't her feelings about the baby's resemblance. Her chest constricted as her voice hardened. "Look, I can't tell you to forget that she was once that Quinn girl's child or to ignore how much Beth might look like her. I can't tell you that because you've always been mine and you look exactly like me, and not a moment has gone by in your life when I haven't thought about that."

A confession such as that would have sent lesser women hiding, but Shelby did not regret it. She set her jaw and bravely looked up at Rachel, whose stare was focused on her and whose expression was unreadable. Then she said quietly and emotively, "You told me you didn't want things to be confusing for me."

Shelby was sure she never would know why she was so inept of making things easy on herself, especially knowing she could have just went along with the happy-family routine the Berrys had been determined to act out thus far that afternoon. Clearly they had the right idea, while Shelby's tactic was only complicating things. "_Are_ you confused?" Shelby asked with a grimace. She had to know for sure. Rachel didn't answer her but she didn't need to. Shelby sighed, her enduring negativity swelling. "Yeah, I am too."

"So…what now?"

"Well…" Shelby trailed off, brushing a lock of her long hair away behind her ear absentmindedly as she tried to figure out the right answer. "I think the best way to deal with confusion is to leave nothing to doubt."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I need to be clear with you," she said, feeling resolute and rotten, "even if the truth is unpleasant. I'm not here to be your mom."

"I just don't understand," Rachel said, her eyes darting around broodingly under her frowning brow. "Wouldn't things have just been easier on you if you never had Jesse give me that tape? If all you want is to be 'grateful' for me from a distance, you could have done that."

"Yes, they might have been easier." Being alone _had_ been easy in a way, but it had always been so unfulfilling and miserable. She was tired of hiding behind her fears. Feeling ballsy, she decided to share a secret. "I sometimes watch your MySpace videos."

Rachel's glower vanished in her disbelief. "You do?"

"I found the page April before last. I was having one of my self-pitying moments when I Googled you, and I fully expected the search to once again remind me that you were the child of two gay men, not me. I hadn't been wrong. Most of the videos back then were Cher or Celine Dion songs…"

"I went through a phase," Rachel admitted.

"At first, seeing you being so natural and candid was overwhelming. After a while, I had chosen to not think about you anymore, content with knowing that your fathers had spoiled you and molded you into a child who clearly belonged to them. But then I saw you at Sectionals. I saw myself on that stage and it shook me to the core. How could I keep convincing myself that you weren't my daughter when I had seen you right before my eyes powerfully perform _that_ song – one that so few can truly master – with that voice and that attitude you had inherited from me?"

"It _is_ a challenging song," Rachel acknowledged, her quiet voice laced with noticeable pride.

"There's nowhere to breathe!" Shelby agreed, momentarily slightly enthusiastic, and the two women shared a soft smile. But Shelby remembered that their similar passions and characteristics were the reasons for her stress only a minute ago, and she cleared her throat and said before she lost her bravery, "Things are always, _always _going to be complicated between us. I want to be able to say, 'This is how we should handle things from here,' but to be honest with you Rachel, I don't know what the right thing to do is. There aren't really books about this, or Oprah-like TV shows or psychiatrists that specialize in surrogacy relationships. Trust me, I've looked. I've tried to deal with my issues and let you live your life. Turns out therapists don't know what to do with me."

"I know the feeling."

Perhaps it was because they were so similar, but Shelby could see in Rachel the discomfort and the struggle that she had been facing for weeks. The rush of the idea of the perfect reunion was over and the bogging down of the reality of life was simply exhausting. Part of Shelby wished that Rachel could still be ignorant of this if only so she didn't have to seem so unhappy; she would have been glad to take the burden back solely on herself once more. But at the same time the other part of her was relieved that she _wasn't _alone any longer, even if it was in this miserable…whatever it was that they had.

But she knew that it wouldn't always be like this. It couldn't. She wouldn't let it. So Shelby leaned forward slightly to get Rachel's attention back on her so she could say, "Just because I'm not going to be your mom doesn't mean that I won't be there for you as your mother."

"It seems that 'complicated' is a bit of an understatement."

"Tell me about it." Shelby straightened out Beth's shirt absentmindedly for a few seconds, before resuming in a less confident tone. "We should still be grateful for one another. We have separate lives, and while we'll end up living them apart it doesn't mean it will always have to be that way."

"Perhaps we can have you over again sometime."

Shelby smiled gently, her mind wandering off to her difficult relationship with Rachel's dads and their unexpected and no doubt somewhat-forced interest. "We'll see how tonight goes."

Rachel must have been content with that, for she didn't argue. They sat in one of the most comfortable silences the two of them had ever experienced together, seconds slipping by with nothing needing to be said, until Rachel interrupted it.

"Shelby?"

"Yes?"

"Why does she keep staring at me?" Rachel asked, her attention back on Beth, and Shelby could have laughed at the look on the Rachel's face. Looking down as well, it seemed Beth's young eyes were indeed fixated on the pretty teenager. It made Shelby feel good.

"She probably recognizes your voice."

"She does?"

"Mmhmm. You used to move around a lot in the last trimester of my pregnancy whenever you heard me sing or laugh."

As Rachel's eyes crinkled with a beautiful smile, it suddenly didn't feel as though they were actually so disconnected, because once, a long time ago, they shared something that wasn't merely coincidental. And Shelby had spent so long resenting that connection that she had forgotten exactly how special it had been.

"Shelby?"

"Yeah babe?"

"Can…can I hold her?"

"You want to hold Beth? Are you sure?" Shelby asked, one of her eyebrows rising with uncertainty. Even when Rachel nodded in response she still felt she was in the Twilight Zone, but she wasn't stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. Sliding across the bedspread so she was in front of Rachel, she hesitated only long enough to allow Rachel a chance to change her mind before she gently moved the baby into the teenager's arms.

"Careful. Make sure her head is supported. There you go," Shelby coached, her hands hovering less than an inch under Rachel's arms, her maternal worrying surfacing. Rachel was stiff at first and clearly unpracticed at holding babies, but after a minute she seemed to relax a bit, her attention completely focused on the blue eyes staring up at her.

After everything that had happened, Shelby couldn't understand how Rachel could manage to beam down at the tiny baby in her arms; that was, until Rachel spoke a minute later.

"I hadn't before considered the effect my voice would have on babies in utero," she said, and Shelby's other brow rose to meet its mate high on her forehead as she watched Rachel's intelligent gaze flicker over Beth's little face. "She is rather sweet, isn't she?"

"She is," Shelby confirmed warily.

"I suppose it would be only natural. How many fetuses are so fortunate as to be constantly serenaded by extremely talented singers in the womb like she and I both have?"

Was it wrong to smile at that? Shelby wasn't sure but she couldn't stop herself, finally fully understanding Rachel's sudden fascination with the baby. It was strange and unorthodox but Shelby was more than happy to go along with it. "I couldn't agree more—"

"Shh!" Rachel hushed suddenly, her eyes unfocused and her attention elsewhere. Shelby's eyebrows shot back up again in response, more than a little baffled. But then she heard it too: the quiet creaking of hardwood stairs under leather soles—the sound of her oppression creeping towards them. She met Rachel's melodramatically narrowed eyes.

"Are you fathers above eavesdropping on us?" Shelby asked quietly.

"Certainly not," Rachel replied with a soft scoff. She glanced at the door far more covertly than the situation necessitated and leaned toward Shelby, her features moving theatrically when she spoke again. "I think we should start talking about something to scare them off. The girls in Glee always start talking about their periods whenever they want to make the boys uncomfortable."

Shelby smirked at that. "I'm a bit out of practice at that but we can give it a shot."

"Oh," Rachel said, paling and tensing. "I'm didn't mean—"

But Shelby wasn't upset. How could she be? This was funny. So Shelby winked at her. "No worries, I think I still remember how it goes." She could hear the old wood of the landing creak from one or both of the men shifting their weight just outside of the mostly open door. The fact that they _actually _had the nerve to spy on them after keeping them apart for so many years inspired Shelby to go for broke. "You're better off putting a new one in, Rachel, rather than try and reposition the tampon," she said, her voice loud enough to carry into the hallway and her smile disguised by a blunt tone. Rachel clapped her free hand to her mouth to stifle her startled laugh. Shelby's Cheshire grin broadened at Rachel's blush and she couldn't resist making it harder for her to keep her weakening composure. "But if that's not an option here's how to do it: First, you need to wash your hands, because you'll be putting them up your— Oh Ephraim? Thomas? Is that you I hear?"

The only thing better than hearing Rachel burst out laughing was seeing Ephraim pop his head into the doorway, looking off-color and discomfited at the two of them. "Hi girls!" he said far too brightly, even for him, sliding into the doorway in his goofy way. His arm reached out and he yanked Thomas into view too, and Shelby took more pleasure than was probably necessary in seeing them stand there looking so ill-at-ease. She smiled smugly, meeting Thomas's dark, cool gaze. To her surprise, he returned the expression, but if he figured out that she was messing with him he wasn't saying so. "We just came to see if you're ready to eat. Actually, we came to see if you'd finish cooking because I don't have any idea if anything is done yet…"

"Okay Daddy," Rachel said, beaming at Shelby as she gracefully sprung off of the bed and met them in the doorway. She still was holding the young baby close to her chest and Shelby followed quickly, anxious as Rachel's bubbly body bounced out of reach. But Thomas took Beth from Rachel's arms just as Shelby joined the Berrys in the hall.

"My turn!" the tall man said with a wide smile down to the infant. To Shelby's dismay he turned and led the way down the stairs while making incoherent noises and silly faces at the bundle in his hands, oblivious to her half-formed objections. Rachel was closely in toe.

"Papa! Give her back! I wanted to see what would happen if I tried singing Amy Grant's 'Baby Baby' to her!" Rachel whined at him, her voice fading as they moved farther away from the bedroom.

"Shelby," she heard Ephraim warn tolerantly, and her wide eyes followed his gaze down to where she was unknowingly gripping the short sleeve of his white dress shirt in panic. She pulled her fingers away and smiled sheepishly. His dark eyes sparkled at her over his glasses. "I don't know how you do it. First with Thomas and now with Rachel…"

"What do you mean?"

"What did you say to her? She's been so sensitive about that Fabray girl's baby for months, and a half an hour with you and now she wants to sing to it."

Shelby snorted, shrugging lamely. "Hell if I know." But Ephraim was still staring expectantly at her, so she just shook her head and said, "I think I must have implied that she had some effect on the baby's disposition because Beth would have heard her voice in Glee. Or that maybe they're part of some sort of exclusive club together since she heard me sing when I was pregnant too." She frowned, trying to recollect exactly what happened in that whirlwind of a minute. "Or something like that. I'm still trying to figure it out."

"She has that effect on people." He chuckled and held out his arm for her to take. She rolled her eyes but went with it, and Ephraim dawdled as he led her towards the stairs. "You really impressed Tom, you know."

"Really?" she said, skeptical. She squinted her eyes comically. "Was it the weeping?"

Ephraim laughed aloud and patted the hand she had in the crook of his elbow. "You kept your composure and you stood your ground today. He always admired that about you, and he's told me more than once over the years about how glad he was that that was something Rachel got from you."

"I don't know if that's something I can take credit for," Shelby said truthfully, her brow knitting as her stomach ache started to return. She and Ephraim's slow progress down the stairs stopped as the turned to look at each other, his expression one of compassion as though he understood more than he let on when it came to her complicated feelings. She wasn't sure how or if he even could. Or if she wanted him to.

"Nevertheless," he said, reaching up to push her chin up gently in a sweet, comforting gesture she hadn't experienced in years. "I'm glad you came today. Just be nice to him, he's trying."

"How long had he been working on that speech of his?" Shelby couldn't help but ask, and less than kindly at that.

Ephraim smiled in that good-natured way of his and replied simply, "A while." He took her hand in his playfully and began pulling her down the steps behind him. "Come on— let's go start dinner so I can ask you all sorts of questions that the other two will be too scared to ask themselves."

For the next couple of hours, and for an even longer time after that evening, Shelby tried to decide if she was wrong to have smiled with them, to have felt young and alive for the first time in years. At what point was her resentment and anger unnecessary or excessive? Was there a point? After all, 16 years ago the two men that were currently doing everything in their power to ignore the any tension between them walked out of a hospital room with a baby they knew well she was wrong to think she could give away. And they had done this without even saying thank you or goodbye. If she asked them now, they would have said that it would have been too hard, but out of everything she had done for them it was the least they could have done for her, to remind her that her misshapen body and her fucked-up emotions were not being used and abused for naught. She didn't care if it had just been business, as Thomas had already said; they had taken advantage of her hormone imbalances to convince her that she had been important in their lives as more than just an incubator and in return all they had to do was let her hold Rachel and say goodbye to her. They could have stayed with her until she had recovered enough to restart her life without them and without the baby that would always be partly hers. Or if either of those things weren't reasonable suggestions, at least they could have taken a moment to hold her hand and look her in the eye before they walked away with her heart.

She knew her grudge was justified. But the source of her anger was set 16 years in the past. She knew she certainly wasn't the same young woman that was left alone in that hospital, and she could see how much being parents had changed Ephraim and Thomas in the last few years, making them better people. Was it fair to still blame them? To be furious and bitter over something that happened more than 16 birthdays ago that none of them could change even if they wanted to?

So, in many ways, it killed her when they made her laugh or made her feel appreciated. She hated their welcome into their home and their pity and emotional handouts, knowing they were a decade and a half too late. But she wanted her daughter so badly, and as stupid and pathetic as it was, she wanted her friends back. She wanted to be included and she wanted to be loved. And they offered all of that without conditions, and all she had to do was let go of some of her bitterness and just go along with it. After so long she was even more indignant than ever, especially after realizing exactly what she was succumbing to, but she also willingly squeezed Ephraim's hand as he held hers. She liked watching Thomas and Ephraim fight over and hold Beth with undivided attention even though seeing them dote over a baby should have devastated her. She had let them spoil her with belated attention and overcompensations throughout the evening, knowing it couldn't be entirely genuine. And she was happy to finally have all of the things she had been wrongly deprived of in the years past.

Ephraim hadn't lied when he said he was going to ask her a multitude of questions, and she hadn't been surprised when he had. He prompted her to tell them all about Broadway, as that was the reason for taking the job they offered 17 years before in the first place and he knew that fact well. She told them the basics, the story everyone heard, about how she spent over three and a half years in New York getting any job she could. She had some supporting roles off-Broadway and understudied on a couple of unpopular Broadway shows. Rachel hung onto her every word and pushed for any scrap of information Shelby was willing to share about her experiences, but there was a great deal Shelby never talked about. She didn't tell them about she felt she had been selling out on the few roles she did procure, knowing that they were shit and that she could have embodied characters more worthwhile if not for her desperation to eat and pay rent. She didn't explain that her ambitions for stardom were withered within months after arriving in New York and no matter how hard she worked she couldn't seem to get them back. And she didn't tell them that her years as an actress stressing about auditions and recovering from constantly being told she wasn't good enough would have been the hardest experiences she ever had if not for the surrogacy through which she had already suffered through by that point.

She had been about 28 years old when she ran out of money and endurance to continue trying to make it on Broadway. Unable to completely let go of her lifelong aspirations quite yet, she came back to Ohio and worked as a singer in a jazz club until she could figure out what she would do with the rest of her life, for she had never imagined a future that didn't include her name in a Playbill.

"There's a jazz club in Lima?" Rachel asked excitedly, the tempeh on her fork dripped homemade barbeque sauce onto her plate from where she held it, forgotten, halfway to her mouth.

"Just one," Shelby told her over the rim of her glass of iced tea, her chest filling with pride at Rachel's undivided attention. "And it's a very good one. Maybe I'll take you there one day if your dads are cool with it."

"I would love that."

"How long did you work there?" Ephraim asked, his eyes moving back and forth between the impressed Rachel and the woman who held her interest.

"A few years. Eventually I decided that I would go back to school to get my teaching certificate in Music and the club was a secure job in the meantime. After all, they say those who can't do, teach, right?"

"But you can!"

"Just not professionally," Shelby reminded her with a halfhearted shrug. "I got the last of the dead air from my deflating ego and dreams out working in that club. There was something about knowing I was stuck back here in Lima indefinitely that was a harsh reminder of my ineptitude."

"You've won multiple national show-choir championships and how you teach is inspiring! I'd hardly consider you inept."

"Thank you, Rachel." Shelby and Rachel's eyes met across the table and the former cocked a half-smile, grateful for her daughter's generous and obviously idolizing comments.

Ephraim cleared his throat. "Shelby, have you met Rachel's Glee teacher? Admittedly, all three of us have had a bit of a crush on him at one time or another. He's a very nice guy."

"We've all agreed he's quite handsome," said Thomas.

"He's a talented singer too," piped in Rachel.

"And he's a good kisser," Shelby added off-handedly as she repositioned her napkin in her lap. She cringed, suddenly aware of what she said. She didn't need to look up to know that all three Berrys were gaping at her, as the incredible silence following the clatter of Rachel's fork to her plate gave it away. Shelby dropped her head into a hand and grumbled into her palm, "God dammit…" and wondered why, out of all the secrets she managed to safeguard in front of these three, _that_ had slipped out. It was a bit mortifying.

Considering that she had pretty much announced that she had a heavy-petting and make-out session with her daughter's teacher, the fallout could have been worse. Once the initial shock wore off (which took much longer for Rachel than it did for her daddies), Shelby was at the receiving end of their good-natured teasing for a while about it, which she accepted with a crooked grin and her natural grace. But when Rachel came out over an hour later holding out a game box for Shelby to see, she was happy to have a distraction from them and Twister was always a bit of a tension breaker as far she could remember. Of course, she had forgotten how embarrassing it was to worry about the band of her jeans staying around her waist as she bent over the plastic mat and she had forgotten about how much endurance was required of a middle-aged woman in order to keep up with a healthy teenager.

She'd embarrass herself a couple more times that night in front of them – which was something she was not used to doing – but at least she didn't lose the game, another thing she wasn't used to doing. Later, Rachel would insist vehemently that she didn't lose either, and because she was so sensitive about it neither Shelby nor the Berrys would argue with her much that night or in their shared days to come.

Shelby Corcoran felt strongly about the importance of playing fair, despite rumors of how she fed her students human growth hormones and paid off judges, but she knew that the concept of fair fell into a gray area. In regards to Twister, she knew that being dainty and doing her best not to touch Rachel during the game was how "fair" was typically looked at, but developing aggressive strategies to restrict the other player's movements by blocking off half of the board and moving right against the other player to put them off-balance was also technically allowed. And she only did this _after_ the fourth or fifth time Rachel taunted her in a rather unpleasant sing-song voice, so she felt the sudden change of tactic was well-deserved.

The moment Shelby began twisting up their ankles and wrists, she saw that Rachel realized she was not as well-off as she thought. And when Rachel finally did fall beneath her, Shelby could only smile for a second before she felt small hands wrap around her waist and 100 pounds of diva pull her down with her. They crashed to the floor together, Rachel and Shelby shrieking from falling and being yanked down respectively, and after landing the latter peeled her cheek from the plastic to turn and look at the wide brown eyes next to her with an equally stunned expression. She was sure that after their moment of surprise vanished they would start arguing about who won, because Shelby expected herself to make it perfectly clear that she did _not _lose and Rachel seemed to think too highly of her Twister skills to accept defeat easily, but then they were distracted as the baby started wailing like a fashion designer in a Wal-Mart.

At first Shelby started to get up to rush to Beth's side, but when she realized both of the Berrys were already hovering over her to quiet the startled child she knew it was unnecessary. The girl had two doting daddies fussing over her and for the first time in a long time that idea didn't bother Shelby. She refocused on Rachel and they shared matching smiles, and the older woman felt that small, weak heart of hers thaw. She was sure it was that warmth that was to blame when she recklessly stole a calm kiss to the girl's forehead beneath her and brushed away hair from her smiling face without her usual hesitation or self-doubt. And despite how she would still compile many more regrets when it came to Rachel down the road, she never considered that moment to be one of them.

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**Considering that both parts of this one-shot had Easter eggs in them from Lea and Idina songs, I'm considering keeping that tradition up with any more one-shots I complete. If any of you know what the songs are I stole snippets of lyrics from (they've been first lines of paragraphs, FYI), try to guess and winners will get virtual fist bumps! :D Don't forget to review!**


	3. Look at Me Now

**Hello all! First of all, I want to thank whoever is currently reading this. I know it's been a very, very long time. My reason, if you'll accept it, is that I was in the midst of graduating college summa cum laude (I only mention that so you know it was a lot of time-consuming work) with my bachelor's degree. Still, that didn't stop me from thinking of all of you constantly and wishing school hadn't drained me of my inspiration! But I'm here again with another one-shot. This one took an extra bit of time because it's different from any Shelby fic I've written so far, given that it's not from her POV at all, but rather from an OC. It also has no Rachel in it. And I also was working on the one-shot that comes AFTER this one, which is done and ready to post. It was because of my best FF friends Cissy Black Malfoy and cybercat08 that I was constantly pushed and aided so I could finally see all of you again with this one, which I'm so thrilled about, so here's a big thank you to both of them! :) **

* * *

**Look at Me Now**

Back in 1987, Bernie O'Shaughnessy was a teacher at an overpopulated Ohioan high school named West Lima High. It was a dump and walking through the oversaturated crowds in the hallway was far more unpleasant to him than driving in Los Angeles traffic on a hot and humid afternoon with a broken A/C. It wouldn't be until after it was shut down in 1991 and replaced with two brand-new schools that the man would realize how much he had loved the decrepit campus, with all of the heart and soul that couldn't be built or added with fresh paint.

In all of his years as a drama teacher, Bernie knew thousands of kids. After half a decade or two he had given up trying to remember all of his past student's names and faces to the point that he could be chatting with them in line at the local coffee shop and not know them apart from genuine strangers (He knew this because he had done that exact thing…more than once.). But there were a handful of kids that he would remember if only because they were impossible to forget. When he first met Shelby Corcoran, he wouldn't have anticipated that she'd be one of those memorable students. She was a skinny thing and rather quiet, but he came to learn that within that slender form and under that big hair (it was the 80s after all) was a sharp mind and a huge talent.

The thing he remembered most about her was her confidence. It wasn't something that came naturally to most people, even to the expressive stage-dwellers that constantly filled his classroom, but she embodied confidence. Her plan to be a Broadway star wasn't a silly aspiration; it was _fact_. Bernie had worked with potential actors long enough to know that just because they may be gifted or determined didn't mean they'd make it to the big time, especially coming from Ohio, but after a couple years even _he_ believed that Shelby would indeed be a star. She was naturally talented but was constantly willing to learn more and try new things, and she worked harder and stayed longer hours than any other student despite her excessively busy school schedule.

She was quick to smile, laughed infectiously, and, regardless of her intentions, managed to draw people's attention and keep it there. In his opinion she was the perfect lead actress. But the girl herself wasn't perfect. She overbooked herself more than once with her various projects, was often deemed offensive because of her brash opinions and sailor's mouth by teachers and students alike, and was a bit of a control freak. But Bernie wasn't the sort of man who thought that was always a bad thing.

Considering her habit of faux pas, Shelby was fortunate to have by her side a lubricant to her social gears. Claudia Campini, an Italian girl in the same grade, was far funnier and more outgoing than her cheeky and droll best friend. Her thick auburn hair was usually let loose in a mane of frizzy waves that surrounded her long, straight nose and bright green eyes, which were always highlighted by her bright, fashionable wardrobe— a compliment to her friend's permed brown hair, Jewish beak, dark hazel gaze and low-key look. Claudia had a clever look about her and in fact she was quite clever, as was evidenced by her many humorous and certainly not academic essays that managed to slip under the radar in her Honors classes to good grades.

She and Shelby only shared one or two of these advanced classes per year, given the latter's inordinate amount of extracurricular activities limited her time. Since Claudia only participated in a couple of the same clubs as Shelby, many often wondered how they had come to be acquainted. And since they both had vastly different dreams for the future – Shelby was going to be a Broadway headliner and Claudia a doctor – people who didn't know them personally might have found it odd to see them racing one particular afternoon through the hallways together after hours, sliding on the dirty floors of West Lima's drama building and giggling loudly, drawing the attention of many in the Drama Room including its middle-aged keeper.

Shelby dug the rubber heels of her sneakers against the linoleum and skidded to a less-than-graceful halt at the doorway six minutes after Drama Club started, her curly hair falling around her face. Next to her, Claudia seemed to have more momentum and less coordination. As the soles of her jellies suddenly met the grip of the classroom's carpet, she tripped and shrieked shrilly, her arms waving wildly like windmills as she attempted to regain some semblance of control.

Shelby, her laugh one of many, led the round of applause after her friend stumbled to a stop, straightened up, and began bowing and waving enthusiastically for her audience of two dozen. Even the upperclassmen clapped appreciatively in support of the sophomore's grand entrance. Their teacher, however, rolled his eyes.

Bernie was used to such theatrics. They were a common part of Drama Club, which was rarely anything but informal. This day was no different. The students were all clustered and mulling about the room, their chatter already resumed in spite of the recent interruption. Bernie only glanced up from where he was pulling out random props from a large box and handing them to students before telling each one to scram; both of the teens at the doorway were already in the midst of tracking down their good friend Leo D'Arcy and joining him in the cheerful chaos.

Looking back, he could see Shelby and her two friends in his mind's eye but the faces of the kids who passed his vision as he absentmindedly followed their progress were all a blur. He wondered why that was; if Shelby's unforgettable quality was shared with her friends or if it was just that she surrounded herself with equally impressive people. In point of fact, by the time he was a senior D'Arcy had earned more than one leading role in school plays. Of course it was usually opposite Shelby because his dark features, olive skin and his tall, lean dancer's body complimented the Jewish girl well under a spotlight and since he did that Glee Club thing with her, casting them as musical leads was a no-brainer.

One memory that Bernie couldn't help but look back at with a smile was seeing D'Arcy try to teach his favorite star how to dance – because that was the one thing that did not come naturally to her – on the stage in preparation for one of their final shows prior to graduation. They staggered all over that stage, both encumbered by her two left feet and a horrible and highly sensitive sunburn that she had along her shoulders and arms from her hours on the tennis court earlier in that week (which he only remembered because it ended up being bright red under the stage lights and a big challenge for the make-up crew by showtime). At one point Bernie had reclined in one of the ripped auditorium seats, popping dried apricots into his mouth and watching their abysmal progress. It wasn't long before Shelby noticed her unwelcomed audience and demanded him out of his own auditorium.

On the day of the improv activity when Claudia and Shelby arrived fashionably late, D'Arcy had what was a shabby, lacy parasol in his lithe hands from Bernie's collection of second-hand props. He winked down at his friends, opening the umbrella and spinning it flirtatiously on his shoulder. The lace edging dangled and whipped around as he twirled his prop.

The room itself was in worse condition than this parasol and the many old objects the students were holding. The outdated avocado green wallpaper was faded and peeling at the corners and the carpet's original color was a mystery even to Bernie. Behind Claudia in the front of the room was a small stage, elevated only a step above the rest of the floor, and the walls were almost completely covered with pictures of past and current students, posters from school productions through the years, and homemade drawings that had little if any significance at all towards the dramatic arts and all to do with self-expression.

Bernie was a lot like the room in which he was stuck. He was old-fashioned and, like the walls, was multilayered in his interests; he loved Shakespeare more than even his theatre students could understand and was open about his fanaticism for the Cincinnati Reds. Most importantly, he really enjoyed teaching, which made working in this dump of a school worthwhile. It wouldn't be until after all the kids in this room would graduate that West Lima High would finally be shut down and demolished and the years of small budgets and second-hand props would be a thing of the past. When that time would come, he wouldn't realize just how much he'd miss that avocado wallpaper and this box of junk through which he was currently digging.

"You're late," he grumbled over to Claudia and Shelby, to whom the last two props would be given. _Why_ they were late he didn't care; knowing Shelby, she was busy with something for one of the other school activities in which she participated, be it tennis or Speech & Debate Club or orchestra or her precious Glee Club. Claudia, on the other hand, probably didn't have any excuse at all. He never did bring it up though and instead said to the redhead, "You lose your Swatch or somethin', Campini?"

"Actually Shaugh, it's funny you say that because I totally did!"

Bernie's mouth pulled up at one corner. He pulled something small and bright out of his pocket which he then tossed underhand in her direction. She screamed and ducked in panic as the object arched just over her head, but when she looked down and realized it was her favorite red-and-yellow Swatch watch she immediately brightened. "Oh, would you look at that?"

After a day of kids like Claudia Campini and the one scrawny kid in the corner whose name he could never remember (though he knew it started with a T) – who was currently pretending to level all of his classmates with his imaginary machine gun – Bernie would go home with his short white hair sticking up in six different directions. His wife loved to make a game to guess how many times he buried his head into his hands, mussing up his neatly combed 'do and scratching at his matching trimmed beard in bafflement. But he lived for this.

"Since Claudia and Shelby already seem to have everyone's attention, I'm thinking that they should start us off on our improv exercise," he told the class in a raised tone, and a few cheered loudly in support of the idea. "Seems that's settled. There are only two props left ladies, so go on and—"

He didn't need to finish. At the prospect of being stuck with the worst of the unwanted props, the two girls merely glanced at one another, clearly exchanging some silent best-friend argumentation, before they took off in direction of the prop box. Elbows flew and tripping occurred but they still ended reaching the box at the same time. There was no hesitation apparent as their sharp minds and good eyesight seemed to have already chosen what they wanted inside.

Unfortunately, it was the same object. They both pulled it out, each grasping different ends of a child-sized, beat-up red guitar with two of its six strings missing and a third loosely hanging off of the short, thin neck of the instrument.

"Let go Claudia," Shelby said sternly, her knuckles white just under the head of the guitar.

"I totally had it first!" she snapped, vainly tugging at the toy. "_You _let go!"

"Come on, you don't even _play_ the guitar!"

"Neither do you!"

"I know how to play the bass guitar! It has four strings—"

"Please, who _couldn't_ play the bass guitar? It's not exactly complicated! _Thump thump thump thump—"_

A few of the kids surrounding the quarrelling friends grinned with amusement, the wild look of sheer glee lingering in their eyes as they watched the back-and-forth. Bernie watched quietly as the brunette's sharp gaze noticed her audience and it was as though he could see a winning plan-of-attack forming just behind it before said to Bernie with a determined, impatient sigh, "Look- Claudia plays music like a fingerless deaf person. Give me ten minutes with that instrument and I'll figure out how to play it backwards and forwards. You want improv, right? I'll be everyone's personal jukebox. Which would you rather have?"

"Let her sing!" one boy called out from the back, and a confident smile grew on Shelby's face as about half of the class cheered and whooped. She cleverly played the situation, knowing how much some of her classmates loved to hear her sing and would find any excuse for her to do it. Heck, Bernie usually allowed it too, for this young girl had a talent and a stage presence that he rarely got to see in their small little town, but this time, he went against his gut instinct.

"No, I don't think so."

The room became strangely silent at this and the two dozen or so students all held looks of confusion. Shelby frowned and Claudia tried taking advantage of her friend's disappointment to yank the guitar away. Shelby didn't let go. "Why not?"

"Acting, in essence, is about embodying the thoughts, feelings and experiences of another," Bernie said, his eyes unwavering from the intensity of the dark ones in front of him. He was too old to be intimidated by her, though he could understand how others would be. "No; I want Campini to try her hand as a musician. So go grab the last prop."

Shelby's face fell, but Bernie was confident in his plan. She was a good enough actress that she could pull off whatever was thrown at her and, regardless of its quality, whatever Campini did with that instrument would be entertaining.

Bernie had no idea why the girl was hesitating despite her disappointment, and it bothered him to see her do so because as far back as he could think the girl never displayed any uncertainty in regards to singing or acting. Even when she had to dance and she knew she was going to embarrass herself, she still jumped in with both feet (Maybe that's why she stumbled so much, Bernie thought vaguely). Then it occurred to him that she already knew what the last prop was, and it was with a heightened level of curiosity that he watched her drag herself back the two steps to the box and reach in to pull out the final object.

It was Bob, Bernie realized with a rush of fondness. Bob the Prop Baby was a toy doll that looked as though a child beat the crap out of it then donated it to a troubled children's home. Bernie always felt a slight twinge of affection towards the poor toy if simply because no one else liked him, which was evidenced by the fact that Bob was left for last.

Shelby pulled it out by an arm, her set in an expression that the teacher didn't recognize. "You've got to be kidding me," she muttered as she turned it in her hands. Many of the kids began chortling meanly at the scuffed-up plastic, the one drooping eyelid that created an appearance of lopsidedness on its crayon-stained head, and the missing foot on its left leg.

"Come on everyone, show some respect," Bernie said to the teenagers while Shelby continued to stare blankly at the doll. "Bob the Baby has been a part of this family for years! Which is why for this exercise I think Shelby should treat it with love, don't you?"

Shelby scoffed at the absurdity of the suggestion. "I _hate_ babies."

"Don't worry, we'll go easy on you. Okay, just as a quick reminder to you all, improvisational theatre is a form of art that involves spontaneous performances by actors. There are no scripts involved, no time for preparation. We, the audience, will offer suggestions to help direct Shelby's performance, and she, the actor, will integrate them."

"Like what?" asked a short and thus faceless freshman in the back. The voice was relatively high but given that it was obviously a tiny freshman Bernie wasn't going to even try to guess the gender, so he just went ahead and answered.

"Well, I already gave her one. She's going to love this baby, so let's assume she's the mother, how about that? Now, what's the setting?"

"An asylum!" one boy shouted. "The baby is a figment of her imagination! She only _thinks_ she's the mom!"

"I already said we'd go easy on her since she's going first," Bernie told him amidst scattered laughter. "Let's give her something intimate. Can't let a girl who wants to follow in Barbra's footsteps only act big, right?"

"She's at home, then," said a girl to his right, and the blonde friend to other side added, "Getting ready to put the baby down for the night."

"'Put the baby down'? Assisted suicide! Bitchin'!"

"Bag your face Tommy! You _know_ that's not what I meant!"

"Bite me!"

"Give it a rest, will you?" Bernie interjected, irritated. "Jeez, I can't even remember where we were."

"She was gonna sing a lullaby!"

Shelby's small, quasi fan club riled back up at this and Bernie shook his head in defeat.

"Seems as though you _will _get to sing after all," he said, turning to look at his favorite student, expecting to see her more cheerful at the idea. "You can work into a song if you want as long as it's not cliché. Show your baby how much you love it."

But Shelby wasn't paying attention to him, or anyone else for that matter; her eyes were unfocused and her jaw was tense. Bernie's brow furrowed as he waited for her to snap out of it and impress them all with the incredible theatricality she had, but she remained still, her hands gripping the sides of the baby's torso with it away from her body like a bomb.

"Shelby? Wake up kid. Do you need someone to help you get it started? Maybe we can have Campini wail like a baby to inspire you."

"No I'll figure it out," Shelby assured, but for once Bernie wasn't inclined to believe her. Maybe it was because she was stiff as a board as she began rocking the doll side to side, its head improperly supported near the crook of her elbow and its footless leg twisted outward. Or maybe it was because she had the same expression she had on her face that he had seen the few times she tried to do long math in her head. "Well, um…Prop Baby…it's um, time for bed now…"

"This sucks already."

"Heidi, be nice."

"Saying it sucks _is _being nice, Mr. O," Heidi said to him, twisting the shedding feather boa around her fingers with a bored expression on her face. "It's not like it's an alien or whatever. This should be like the easiest thing ever."

He glanced back at Shelby, prepared to see her geared up to put her classmate in her place with that sharp attitude he'd often seen from her, but instead it was her best friend that spoke up.

"Give it a rest Heidi," Claudia said. "She's not like you with 42 brothers and sisters."

"That's funny coming from a Catholic—"

"_I'm_ Catholic!" Bernie interrupted crankily.

"Sorry Mr. O," Heidi responded, holding up her hands defensively while the feather boa was still tangled in them. "I'm just saying that I'd never ask Shelby to come over and babysit. I'd be afraid she'd need an instruction manual or something."

Once again Shelby didn't argue. Instead, she tucked some of her hair behind her ear timidly and said, "Maybe you should just let someone else go first."

It was just an after-school Drama Club meeting; totally casual and inconsequential. But Bernie never forgot the day he saw Shelby Corcoran devoid of her characteristic assertiveness. Still, he made a mental note never to cast her as a parent in anything. "Yeah. Sure. No problem." He realized he wasn't the only person staring at the sophomore, so to help Shelby save face he went with the next-best thing: "Hey Campini! Can you play Freebird with that thing?"

* * *

Why Bernie O'Shaughnessy let his wife drag him out shopping was a mystery to him; well, okay, that was a lie. He had been married more than twice as many years as he had been single at this point in his life and he knew good and well it was a damn stupid idea to upset the missis. So really, what Bernie was trying to put himself in denial about was that Marie had no problem letting him go hungry or – dare he even think it? – force him to join her on a night in with her girlfriends (which consisted of an unhealthy amount of dominoes or gin rummy, geriatric gossip and male-bashing) if he did not cheerfully accompany her to the local Babies "R" Us to spend an afternoon emptying his pocketbook.

"For $500 a stroller, that thing had better come with an engine of some sort," Bernie deadpanned, jutting a stubby thumb over his shoulder.

Marie, still a pretty woman considering she was in her 70s (he wasn't foolish enough to be any more specific than that), turned around to look at the price tag he was pointing out. She put her glittery, plastic glasses on her nose and squinted through them to read the print. From his perspective, her blue eyes seemed oddly disproportional compared to the rest of her face and her wrinkles seemed more prominent, but it wasn't a sight that he was unused to.

"I heard Joyce's daughter-in-law purchased one from the internet that cost a _grand_," she told him seriously, dropping her glasses back to where they hung from around her neck onto her chest.

"For that much I hope it was gold-plated. I don't get it, the kids already have a stroller—why are we even here?"

"Just because it's your son's second child doesn't mean it's any less special. We still need to get them a gift!"

"Get'em diapers. There, done."

"Oh Bernie, you just don't get it."

"No, I don't. This store is full of singing, dancing, flashing toys for _infants_ for God's sake—"

"Language!" she interrupted with a frown, which he ignored.

"What's wrong with giving a kid a spoon for entertainment? Worked well in our day."

"So did lead-painted cribs. Why don't you go look around on your own for a while? I can't even think with you jabbering on like you're doing."

So he growled half-heartedly and let her walk off with her determination to buy something nice. His right buttock – against which his wallet always rested – was already twitching in anticipation for whatever the object would cost him, but there was no stopping Marie when she was on a mission. So he figured he'd better find a comfortable place to sit down to wait.

Fortunately for him, given the type of store in which he was stuck there was an area devoted to furniture, and he shuffled over and plopped down on the nearest, comfiest looking rocker he could find. There were plenty to choose from to be sure, and he wasn't the only person giving one a test drive. Down the row behind where he was sitting was a woman focused on the infant in her arms and further along than that was a young pregnant couple bickering indistinctly from a couple of chairs while pointing to different cribs located just a few feet away. He was glad he was done with that portion of his life, because he remembered what it was like to be in that couple's shoes.

He closed his eyes, considering for a moment dozing off until Marie found him, but the sounds of screaming toddlers and kids running by intermittently were surely going to prevent that. It was in a rare moment of near silence that he heard something that was neither the sounds of shrieking children nor the ambient music coming from high overhead—the sound of a woman's voice, singing softly. It was beautiful and unexpected and it was enough to cause him to open his eyes and turn his head to find its source.

It was the woman sitting nearby that he hardly gave a second thought to only a minute earlier. Her long, dark, straight hair covered most of the features on her face as she looked down at the tiny child in her arms, but her voice captivated him, and it took only a few moments to realize the reason why: he had heard it before. It began to nag at him, for he was unable to place why he was familiar with it, but after searching his memory he realized this woman had been a student of his once. The image of a skinny thing with big hair and a bright smile came to the forefront of his mind and his mouth curved upward as he realized he was staring at one of his favorite pupils from years and years ago.

He twisted his upper body in his chair and hung an elbow over the top of the wooden rocker, watching and listening quietly to the melodious sounds she made. He didn't recognize the song she was currently humming as anything other than some sort of swing, and when she started adding lyrics Bernie smiled, knowing she was making them up on the spot.

"_Good morning Bethie, good morning lovey-do_

_Please tell me Bethie, is this chair is for you? _

_With it I will rock you to your dreams_

_And we will go dancing across lunar beams._

_You will see starlight and dazzling meteors_

_We'll meet martians and journey to sparkling galaxies galore…"_

"Now that's a voice that belongs on Broadway," Bernie interrupted, unable to contain himself any longer. The woman looked up at him and for the first time since she walked across that stage at her high school graduation he met her eyes.

"Mr. O'Shaughnessy! How nice to see you," Shelby Corcoran said, her expression quickly softening from a look of surprise to a pleasant smile. As she sat back in her chair, she seemed totally unembarrassed that someone witnessed her spontaneous song, but as he tried to remember more of when he had known her, he realized that wasn't so odd.

"Do you always sing to your baby?"

"Ad nauseam; certainly more than I thought I would," she said with a laugh. Her eyes scanned over him and he was glad that her approval didn't seem to waver based on what she saw. "It's been a long time."

"I can't even remember how long. Was it before West Lima shut down?"

"Yes it was. I was in the class of '89."

"Gee whiz, has that much time passed?"

"It seems so. A lot has changed since then." Without stopping the gentle back-and-forth motion she was creating with her glider chair, she looked away as if the thought took her mind elsewhere, but after a moment she turned her attention back on him and seemed perfectly relaxed. "What are you doing here?"

"I think my wife wants to buy out the store for our new grandbaby."

"Congratulations," she said sincerely. Her speaking voice was richer than he remembered, and the features of her face were more defined. It gave her this unmistakable sense of maturity and solidity that she hadn't fully developed in her high school years. It was suiting.

"To you as well," Bernie said as his eyes travelled down to the teeny baby dressed in a cute purple onesie Shelby held against her satiny white blouse. "She must only be only a month or two, isn't she? She's already starting to look like you."

"I'd be surprised if that were true," Shelby said, her gentle smile widening. "Beth is adopted, but you're right: she's only about six weeks old."

He was glad his beard usually hid his blush. The comment was pretty generic, but he hadn't accounted for adoption. "What made you and your husband want to adopt, if you don't mind me asking?"

"No husband, I'm single," she corrected, turning her hand away from under the baby for a moment so he could see she was without a wedding band. He remembered the expression about people who assume and he decided he should stop being one of them. She didn't seem bothered by the mistake though, or at least not until she tried to answer his question. She looked down at the child in her arms. "This is just something I've wanted for a long time. I was ready for a family of my own."

She had been right earlier; a lot must have changed for her to adopt a baby. In high school she was open about how she never considered herself cut out for or interested in kids. But then again, she was just a teenager then and teens rarely know what they want—except, he remembered, she always seemed to be an exception. "I always expected if I ever saw you again it'd be in a Playbill, though I suppose winning multiple national show-choir competitions isn't that bad of an alternative."

She smiled and raised one of her dark eyebrows, her eyes shining with amusement. "You've been keeping tabs on me, Mr. O'Shaughnessy?"

"You forget that you came to teach in _my _school district," Bernie teased. "Just because I may be retired doesn't mean I don't still know things. I have friends who work at Carmel and they tell me that you're a truly excellent teacher."

"Thank you. That's very kind."

"Don't thank me. Instead, why don't you tell me how many more championships are you gonna collect for that bank you call a school?"

"I've resigned from coaching Glee," she admitted, and for a moment he frowned in disbelief. How could she possibly resign after her school won a national championship for the fourth time in a row? Maybe the stress was too much for her or perhaps she just wanted to go out on top, he hypothesized. She seemed to expect his shock and explained, "I'm tired of it, and now I want to devote my time to Beth. I have to admit, I've been giving some thought to trying my hand at Drama. Too many schools have been without drama departments for far too long."

He grinned at that. "Well, that answers a long-standing question I had about whether you liked Drama or Glee Club more. I'm going to count this as a win for myself."

"As you should."

Bernie had been retired for a few years now, and the more time passed the more he missed teaching acting. The years right before West Lima closed were some of his favorites as he had been blessed with some very talented and tolerably energetic kids, Shelby and many of the people she chose to acquaint with among them. "How are those friends of yours? What's-her-name, that Campini girl – Claire or Claudette or whatever it was—"

"Claudia," she corrected.

"Yeah, her, and that boy D'Artagnan?"

"D'Arcy. Leo D'Arcy."

"That's right. I'm terrible with names."

"I can tell," Shelby said. Her eyes seemed a little sad as she answered him. "I get Christmas cards from Claudia. After we graduated, she went to Berkeley to study pre-med and dated so many guys that I lost track. As far as I know she's still in California and is a successful pediatrician with a good-looking husband and three kids. She got everything she wanted."

"You sound bitter."

"No, of course not," she said, but Bernie wasn't fooled; her friend's life may have gone according to plan but Shelby's didn't seem to, given that she was currently in a department store in Lima, Ohio and not on a stage in New York.

"What about D'Arcy? Did he become a dancer? He was a damn good dancer."

"Last I heard he moved to Boston, married his college boyfriend and owns a couple of seafood restaurants."

"'Boyfriend'?" Bernie repeated stupidly. "Well, that explains a few things."

He was glad when his two-decade delay made her laugh, even though he was suffering a harsh reminder about his apparent lack of gaydar. Bernie didn't even realize it about his youngest son until the boy told them of his homosexuality one night over pot roast. He blamed church. "How come you lost touch with them?"

She shrugged, her expression becoming rather empty as she glanced away. Her foot continued to push her glider forward and back while she spoke. "We went to different schools, grew apart. They had families and I didn't. So that's that."

Maybe it wasn't so astonishing that the features of her face could be so expressive and telling; after all, she was an actress. But it was as if they told a story in a different language, and even with all of his years teaching students just like Shelby he could not interpret it. Still, he couldn't bring himself to pry anymore. As Marie would be happy to remind him, it wasn't his business. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's fine." She turned her gaze down at her baby again for a moment and her hard expression softened. So did her voice. "Maybe I'll give them a call. Catch up."

"Make sure they know I asked about them. I have a brother in Boston I visit often and we just _love_ clam chowder."

Her smile reached her eyes. "I will."

He heard his name then from somewhere behind him, and so he turned back around in his rocker and noticed his wife waving him toward the registers. He didn't have his glasses on but thankfully from where he was sitting it didn't look like she had filled the cart up too much, but with his luck there was probably a laptop computer for newborns in there or something (he knew he was exaggerating, his wife was a pretty conscientious shopper, but it was much easier to imagine the worst than the best). He turned back to his formal pupil to say goodbye.

"Looks like that's my cue," Bernie said regretfully. "We're in the phone book; look us up. We'll have you and – what's her name? Beth? – over for dinner sometime. We can throw around some ideas for your hypothetical drama program."

"I'd like that," Shelby agreed. "It was good to see you again, Mr. O'Shaughnessy."

"You too, Shelby. The best of luck to you."

He stood up and held up a hand in farewell, taking one last moment to take in how much she had grown up before he walked away. As a teenager, she had been smart but not wise, dogged but not jaded, and independent but still social. She had a zealous fire about the future that seemed irrepressible. Now that she was older, calmer, more experienced, and – he didn't want to believe it – a bit lonesome, it seemed that inferno was gone. But then she returned her attention to the child in her arms and he saw a glimmer of light in her eyes that touched a chord with the life-long (and proud) curmudgeon. While the fire seemed to have died in her careers, it seemed that she had something else that still impassioned her.

Remembering when she was 16 years old and holding that awful prop doll, she had been unable to communicate even an ounce of pretend affection, but now the warmth that radiated from his former student was something distinctly maternal. Shelby was obviously infatuated with the child curled into her chest; after she tucked her long hair behind an ear, she placed her palm down on the girl's tummy and the baby immediately had a couple of her fingertips gripped in tiny hands. It was so comfortable and intimate that Bernie's beard twitched with a smile as he walked away.

He knew from having kids how wholly and unpredictably fulfilling it was. While there were dimensions of Shelby Corcoran that he had never understood and obviously never would because of their lack of interaction, _that_ was something he could understand perfectly.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Marie asked him as he joined her near the check-out line.

"One of my former students," he said casually. She was used to him bumping into ex-students all over Lima but he wondered if she noticed that this was one of the few with whom he was happy to chat. "What are we buying?"

"I gave up and grabbed some diapers," she admitted sheepishly, her expression accepting of any ribbing aimed her way. For once he didn't even bother and strung an arm around her back affectionately.

"What do you think about getting them a nice rocking chair instead?"

* * *

**No one played my Easter Egg hunt! The first chapter had a line from Spring Awakening's My Junk and the second a paraphrase from Nobody's Side from Chess in Concert. I'm sure many of you noticed Beth's song was a reworking of Idina's absolutely adorable Good Morning Walker. If any of you haven't heard it yet, go YouTube it! You'll be glad you did.**

**If any of you are still reading this, take a second to review so I know you're still there! I have the next chapter ready to go and if I think people are still reading I'll post it really soon. And trust me, you'll want me to post it. It's full of drama and Shelby and Rachel and everything we love. :)**


	4. Dammit Janet

**Wasn't too agonizing of a wait this time, was it? :) Take your time in the beginning of this, the narration flashes back a couple of times. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope you also enjoy reading it!**

* * *

**Dammit Janet**

"Don't think that I haven't noticed that you always want me to sing the male parts."

Shelby Corcoran barely looked up from where she was sitting on her carpeted floor to her teenage daughter, even as the music she was supposed to be singing to coursed through her expensive sound system. Rachel had just pointed out her cue, or what the girl had decided would be her cue, as the second verse of "Rose Tint My World" began playing. Shelby's living room had been filled with the sounds of the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ soundtrack for the better part of an hour, which Rachel had decided was more than appropriate considering she had convinced Shelby to help her make the Frank-N-Furter lingerie outfit that Janet wore at the end of the film.

How Rachel had talked her into such a request was beyond her. She had told herself not long after she met Rachel that she didn't want to be that person the girl went to whenever she needed something domestic done. But it didn't take Rachel long to break her resolve and she knew a great deal of her weakness came from being at the receiving end of that devastated look the girl had mastered long before Shelby ever came into the picture. She sighed in remembrance, especially as she stared at the mannequin in front of her, evaluating any and all flaws it might have at this point.

It was a challenging outfit, and certainly one Shelby felt uncomfortable making for Rachel, being the girl's mother and all. But despite her cynical realization that their tradition seemed more like a strange cliché – Ms. Corcoran, Rachel Berry's personal costumer – she wanted to be welcoming, supportive and helpful. And needless to say, Rachel really _did_ require the help with this particular costume. No store in Western Ohio carried anything close to the Transylvanian corset and even if they did, Shelby hated the idea of Rachel shopping for it. Especially since her boyfriend would be shopping with her. Because he'd need one too. She tried her very best not to think about that one too deeply.

Shelby was in disbelief that Rachel's school was tackling _Rocky Horror_, considering its risqué content. She wasn't stupid enough to even dare suggest it at Carmel or the respect she worked long and hard to deserve would be gone in an instant. When she was in high school, a couple of her brave peers petitioned to put on Hair and were nearly suspended for the idea—and her school was definitely less wealthy and white than Carmel was! But Rachel did her best to assure her that Mr. Schuester was censoring the script to make it more family-friendly. With that said, Shelby logically explained to Rachel that the lingerie costumes probably wouldn't make it into the show, but Rachel was unworried. Her rationality was that if the characters could walk around in tighty-whiteys, then these outfits, which weren't any more revealing (but definitely more suggestive, Shelby thought), weren't any less appropriate. She could tell she wasn't going to change Rachel's mind so eventually she surrendered.

Shelby reached over her shoulder and rubbed a growing knot. What she was most mad at herself for was the realization that she'd do this stupid project a hundred times if Rachel asked her to. She sighed again, thinking about how her reputation would be at risk if anyone outside of this house found out what a pushover she was. Fortunately, only two people had any concept of how easily the seemingly resilient, life-hardened woman could be wrapped around a finger. One of them was sleeping in her crib the next room over. And the other person…well, the other was pouting, clearly unhappy that Shelby was bursting her show-tune bubble.

In Shelby's defense, this wasn't the first time she had been subjected to vocal discrimination by her daughter. It was just the first time she had pointed it out.

She honestly had no problem playing Brad to Rachel's Janet vocally because it allowed the girl to prepare for McKinley's school musical that was only announced the day before. Still, the last couple times she and Rachel had spent together, inevitably Rachel's karaoke CDs would come out and her big, begging eyes stared at her, expecting her to sing along. Rachel commandeered the iconic female roles without question or sharing. Shelby wasn't really upset with this as much as she was curious.

"It's because you sing in a lower register than me, of course," Rachel responded straightforwardly as she muted the music.

Shelby shook her head as she fixed on the final clamp to the hem of the leggings where the red-sequins garter belt would be attached. She let her hands drop down with a groan, her fingers painful from her careful work. Behind her, Rachel perched on the edge of the sectional couch and leaned forward to look closer at her mother's handiwork. Shelby's pain and stiffness was worth it to see Rachel's face light up as she inspected it.

They had been taking things slow over the last few months. Shelby did her best to be honest in explaining that she was worried about dropping her baggage in the middle of their complicated relationship, and despite her initial confusion Rachel was trying to be understanding of that. Still, they made an effort to see one another. For the most part, Rachel's fathers were present, but despite the bumpiness of their reunion Shelby found she enjoyed having them around. They were very generous with what limited time they had and had even babysat Beth a couple of times. She remembered a particularly rough night of parent/teacher conferences after school had restarted in which she spent the whole night being harassed by many of the parents for the way and timing from which she retired from Glee. It had been wonderful to go to the Berrys after that awful evening and to see Beth so happy and listen to Rachel as she explained that she had done her best to teach the young baby musical scales.

While they usually planned out their time together, Shelby had been surprised when Rachel stopped by her office earlier this particular afternoon and requested a new costume. Admittedly, Shelby hesitated at the request initially, for they had experienced their first real fight a month before and since she had been careful to make sure Rachel's dads were around whenever they were together. Having Rachel over to work on a costume would mark the first time since then that they'd be alone again and Shelby was nervous they'd experience a repeat performance.

The day of their fight had started out fine, with Rachel over to spend time with her and, consequently, Beth. They had put in _Hello Dolly!_ and tried to relax, but before this, the last time it had truly been just the two of them was when Rachel came to her at Regionals and told her about Beth's birth. The nervous tension had been palpable, which was probably the reason for their clipped tones after Shelby paused the movie to feed the apparently hungry Beth.

She hadn't realized that Rachel followed her into the other room and watched her with the baby. If she had, she might not have been so candid with her adoptive daughter, cooing and laughing at the four month old as the baby drained the bottle, for no matter how pleasant Rachel acted Shelby had always been sure that Beth's adoption still bothered the teenager a little bit. She wished she had been wrong.

"You're so good with her," Rachel had said after Shelby put Beth back in her crib, and Shelby had spun around in surprise to see her audience. Her smile faded when she saw that Rachel's brow was crinkled and her arms were crossed, indicating annoyance. Her body language changed the context of Rachel's words tremendously. "Beth is lucky."

"Luckier than you, you mean?" Shelby clarified, frowning, her own arms crossing over her chest and her weight shifting on one foot.

"I certainly never had the luxury of a mother to feed me."

Shelby wondered if Rachel had been aware before she antagonized her whether the girl knew how painful the spots she had been prodding were. For the most part, Rachel was good about not bringing up such sensitive topics, but she was also 16 years old and thus prone to irrationality and rebellion. If she had been older, she might not have purposefully put out of mind for the sake of her confusing feelings how openly appreciative she was for her fathers, the circumstances involving her existence, or how comparatively unlucky Beth was for only having one parent to love her. And while Shelby had experienced many years as a teacher dealing with the senselessness of teenage tantrums, it didn't mean she could tolerate this particular one.

"What do you want me to do, Rachel? What do you want me to say? _Sorry_?" Shelby had asked her crossly. Rachel just glowered and turned her eyes away stubbornly, her lips thinning in an irritation that surely couldn't have matched Shelby's. "It was a _surrogacy! _My distance was part of the deal! If you have a problem with it, take it up with your dads and quit giving me shit about it. Jesus Christ, I can't believe we're even having this conversation…"

Looking back, Shelby knew she could probably have been less abrasive and more tactful, but she was fuming. She didn't even stop Rachel from collecting her stuff and walking out her door, though she didn't take her eyes from the girl the entire time she paced stormily in her mother's driveway as she waited for a ride.

Once her anger wore off, Shelby had been scared that she had chased off Rachel for good, but a few days later the teen had called her up to ask her advice about something trivial. Their fight, if it could even be classified as that, was a conversation they hadn't addressed since, instead favoring the thespian-approach by pretending as though it never happened.

By and large, Shelby was continually amused by particular aspects of Rachel's personality such as her incredible certainty and her inability to admit when she was wrong. At least, in contrast to that bad afternoon, having Rachel typecast her vocally was something she was more apt to handle correctly. So when the girl suggested she always sung in a deeper register, she was happy she was able to do so without even cracking an amused smile at Rachel, despite the impulse.

"Sometimes," Shelby responded simply, her eyes giving the costume a final look over before she decided it was finished.

"Sometimes?" Rachel questioned, and Shelby gave into the draw to turn and look around in response to her daughter's strangled tone. Whatever this conversation was, it seemed to be personal to Rachel. Naturally, Shelby was intrigued.

"Yes, sometimes," Shelby laughed lightly, her intelligent eyes roaming over the 16 year old's displeased face. Perhaps she had simply assumed, as most do, that Shelby was merely a mezzo-soprano. The idea of shooting down that understatement appealed to the prideful woman very much. "I don't like to restrict myself to any specific vocal category."

Rachel narrowed her eyes. "What is your vocal range?"

"Five octaves."

"_Five?" _Rachel yelped, springing to her feet as though her mother had given her an electric shock.

Shelby rolled her eyes at Rachel's drama, leaning back against the foot of the couch as she watched as Rachel's expressive face displayed her various thoughts. "What's the big deal?"

Rachel seemed genuinely distressed. Shelby wondered if she should be worried, still not being very fluent on the idiosyncrasies of Rachel Berry, but then the girl said quietly, "I'm just not used to people being better than me."

In retrospect, it probably didn't help Rachel's self-esteem hearing her mother snort loudly with laughter at her. But Shelby couldn't help it— her face was adorable and the situation was just too ridiculous.

"Why are you laughing at me?"

Shelby's mirth subsided as she rolled to her feet lithely and unclothed the mannequin bust; Rachel's eyes still focused on her sulkily. She handed the finished costume to Rachel and leaned her elbows on the bust's shoulders, a grin still plastered across her face. "Where do you think you got it from, babe?"

Rachel's pouting lips began to turn upward at this, and Shelby felt a swell of delight that the idea that Rachel took after her was enough to turn the girl's frown around. She was about to remind Rachel that she still had years more in which her voice would continue to develop and expand to the point in which it would probably surpass hers – which no doubt would cheer her daughter up immensely – but before she could her doorbell rang.

"Go try on your costume. I'll see who it is."

"Okay," Rachel said with a pretty smile, and Shelby's chin rested on her folded arms and watched her daughter skip away. If the doorbell hadn't rang again, Shelby might have forgotten that anyone was out there, having been absorbed in her strong feelings of contentment at having both of her daughters in her home and in her life.

"I'm coming!" she hollered over her shoulder, glancing as the door of the master bedroom closed behind Rachel before she treaded over to the entryway. Usually she checked the eyehole, but she was still distracted with thoughts of her and Rachel's enjoyable afternoon, and it was likely that whatever lay on her doorstep was a package she ordered for herself and Beth. Her hand was already on the door handle when the doorbell rang for a third time and so she yanked it towards her, ready to chide whatever impatient postal worker on the other side, but the woman who stood there was definitely no mail carrier.

"Hello Shelby."

Shelby's smile dropped instantaneously and her features hardened. The expression of the face in front of her was eerily similar, but this was an unpleasant realization that had occurred to Shelby years before to her everlasting dismay.

Janet Corcoran looked exactly like she did the last time Shelby had seen her over two and a half years before at her nephew's bar mitzvah. Her carefully maintained skin, artificial blonde hair and fit body all worked together to disguise her 63 years of life. Looking at her, all Shelby could think that she was a walking lie – that what she saw were all constructs Janet wanted you to see – and she hated it. But she knew that what she hated most was that all of those features that Janet _couldn't_ change about herself were things Shelby inherited, from the narrow Jewish nose to the kaleidoscopic eyes—which were much lighter than her daughter's but just as intimidating and complex.

As much as she disliked it growing up, Shelby learned from her mother that appearance was important. At this moment, it was fortunate that she had not changed out of her dark business attire when she and Rachel came home from Carmel, though it had wrinkles and lint on it from the living room carpet. She couldn't have imagined how she would have felt staring at the polished woman in front of her had she thrown on some sweats; as it were, she regretted the loss of height her heels would have given her, for without them Janet's short heels gave her a slight advantage.

And just then, Janet's eyes were boring down onto Shelby, waiting for some sort of utterance of acknowledgment. But she couldn't bring herself to play along with her mother's charade, a practice she was encouraged from birth to do. The last time she had spoken to her mother was almost a half-year ago on the phone, when Shelby had informed her that she had a new grandbaby and unintentionally let slip about Rachel's existence, and that conversation had been such an emotional catastrophe that Shelby had hung up on her.

Both women were stubborn and headstrong and had refused to speak to the other again since, although Shelby felt that her grudge was justified. She had known better than to expect her mother to embrace the idea of an adopted child, but she had done her daughterly duty in telling her and Janet did not reciprocate even before she accidentally dropped the Rachel bomb. In a way, Shelby felt relieved of the negativity her rocky relationship with Janet since then and took the opportunity to focus on the new family she had made for herself.

That is, until the woman showed up unannounced on her doorstep months later.

"What are you doing here?"

"That's no way to greet your mother. Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Shelby felt her nostrils flare. She was nearing 40 years old and the doorway she was blocking with her body was that of the house she had owned for nearly a decade. She didn't appreciate being spoken to like a child and she wouldn't tolerate it, which is why she repeated in a much stronger voice, "What are you doing here?"

"I was visiting some of the ladies from the old country club for dinner and I thought I would drop by and see you and this baby of yours on my way back."

"As much as I appreciate you making me an afterthought, you really should have called." With that, Shelby shut the door but Janet threw out a manicured hand against the wood, stopping her.

"Let me in, Shelby."

"Now's not a good time, Mother."

"Then _make_ it a good time!"

Those scary eyes that Shelby knew she had inherited were unwavering and threatening, waiting for Shelby to submit, and submit she did: for no matter how much animosity and distance existed between her and her mother, she still loved her and feared her. And as Janet stepped through the entryway, thus tainting the sanctum that was Shelby's home, she said, "I did not drive all the way over here to have a door slammed in my face!" and made Shelby seriously regret surrendering her ground.

It had been years since either of her parents had visited. When she first bought the house and lived there with Scott years before, Janet had been very supportive and encouraging, and Shelby was certain part of the reason Janet liked Scott so much was that she thought he was the kind of influence Shelby needed to finally settle down. When Janet dropped in last, it was not long after her hysterectomy and her breakup from her fiancé, and in her weakened physical and emotional states she had allowed Janet to berate her for all of her "mistakes" in her life. The only mistake Shelby thought she had made was letting her guard down even for a moment around Janet Corcoran, for – in Shelby's experiences – the woman thrived preying on the weak. She quickly rectified that error by reacting with a vigor that her mother did not anticipate, and the resulting argument was something Shelby's neighbors still liked to bring up years later as though it had been some funny event.

Janet hadn't returned since, which did not upset Shelby at all. She had only seen her parents when her sister invited everyone to visit at the holidays or at family events. Because Shelby always worked hard to be a respectable person she did not ignore her mother, though their conversations were always curt and strained.

But here she was, looking around at Shelby's den with that awful gaze, taking in the grand piano and pictures of Beth and of the Berrys that lined the mantle. In regards to the latter, she knew that Janet did not understand their significance and instead must have accepted it as something unknown that Shelby worked hard to keep from her parents. There was a great deal of truth to that assumption.

"Hey Shelby, is there any way we can add some padding to this or pull it up so it makes my boobs look better?"

Having totally forgotten that Rachel was trying on the costume in the other room, Shelby spun around in alarm and saw her daughter walking in from the hallway with her eyes and both of her hands on her corseted bosom.

Oh dear god.

The corset did a fine-enough job at highlighting Rachel's naturally small breasts, but with Janet Corcoran's jaw dragging on the floor and the tension in the room excruciatingly thick, Shelby didn't dare assure her daughter of that. Instead, her widened eyes took in the way the costume stopped at her midriff and exposed a stripe of skin there, beneath which the black bikini bottom was tight around her hips and probably just as much around her buttocks. The sheer stockings went up to mid-thigh below that, and if only she had also tried on the stripper heels that finished the outfit, Shelby would have been sure that her mortification would have been complete.

At a loss for words, Shelby's hands went up to tangle in her hair as she looked at Rachel in her _Rocky Horror_ costume, knowing her mother was seeing something completely different. A few unbearable seconds passed in absolute silence and Shelby tore her eyes from Rachel only to see that her mother was unable to do the same. Janet's mouth was moving slightly as her sharp eyes scanned over the teenager's face and body and she finally spoke up with a level of hysteria that made Shelby tense painfully: "What on _earth_ is going on here?"

"Shelby?" Rachel said questioningly, her big eyes round and confused as they moved back and forth between the two Corcoran women. She was either totally comfortable in the costume or utterly oblivious to how she appeared, for she only seemed concerned with understanding more about the stranger behind Shelby.

"Rachel, go change back into your clothes."

"But—"

"Now!" Shelby said, raising her voice forcefully, her panic and desperation lacing her tone just enough for Rachel, with her keen ears, to hear. She nodded apprehensively and backed out of the room, disappearing back into the master bedroom. With a grimace, Shelby turned on a heel to face her fate.

Her mother's face could have been carved from stone. "Who is her biological father?"

"I don't know," Shelby began, but before she could explain Janet's loud scoff interrupted her.

"You _don't know_? How many men could it _be_?"

"Two, but—"

"_Two_?" Janet repeated piercingly, her cheeks turning dark pink and her lips pursed in a thin white line. The shrillness of her voice was enough to cause Shelby's blood pressure to spike even higher to the point that she was practically drowning from the rushing in her head. "I see what you meant when you said that she is _just like you_," she said cruelly, and Shelby's teeth clenched in anger. Janet gestured with a flip of her wrist where Rachel had just stood at the hallway's opening. "And I clearly just walked in on you passing along how to be some sort of slut!"

Shelby's jaw dropped. "I'm not—"

"My god, so many things make sense now! All those times you avoided the house when you were a teenager and when you moved away to college, it was to hide your promiscuity! And that bohemian lifestyle you just _had _to live! To think, I actually felt _pity_ for you when you became sick, when it was most likely as a result of some sort of rabid sexually transmitted disease…"

"You're wrong," Shelby growled, her hands so tight at her sides that her short nails were digging into her palms.

But Janet ignored her, blinded by her snowballing notions of Shelby's supposed improprieties. "I _knew_ I should have locked you up after I found out you used to sneak out of your bedroom at night! To _think_ that _my_ daughter was nothing more than a teenage tramp, hiding under my nose…!"

"I'm not a _tramp_! I never had sex until after I was 18 years old!" Shelby blurted angrily. Her eyes widened at her divulgence and she raised a shaky hand to her heated cheek in self-anger and embarrassment. Her mother's merciless attack had her coming apart at the seams and she couldn't manage to repair the rips.

Of course Rachel had to choose that moment to walk back in – dressed once again in her cable-knit sweater, pleated skirt and knee-high socks – and interrupt. Maybe she thought she was being helpful, or impressive, when she said articulately, "And I don't plan on having sex until I'm at least 25 years of age, once my career is well-established."

"Now you're just overcompensating, dear," Janet said unkindly, her eyes moving over Rachel in her juvenile outfit.

Rachel seemed hurt and bewildered at this virtual stranger's attitude but Shelby was too furious to console her beyond the eye contact she was unwilling to break. Seeing them both together, Shelby felt an enormous swell of satisfaction that Rachel looked nothing like her biological grandmother. No matter how much Shelby may have detested the fact that she could not avoid being like Janet, she was relieved that the teenage girl – who was so much like her – did not have those same qualities.

Her daughter's warm brown stare was slightly calming, enough that Shelby could say with only a hint of disdain aimed at Janet, "I wouldn't be surprised if she means it."

"Really? Well, from where I was standing, I'd say she's well on her way to getting knocked up from careless, premarital sex just like her mother."

"Rachel's birth was planned."

"Oh really, yet you don't know who the biological father is?"

"Yes!" Shelby said, exasperated. "If you'll just listen to me—"

"This is crazy, Shelby! How do you expect me to believe _any_ of this absurdity? And I _know_ you were having sex in _my _house when you were 14, so stop lying to me!"

"I _wasn't_! Leo and I were both _legal adults_ when first slept together!" she snapped, too livid to stifle herself. "We both had been too preoccupied during high school to date much and since we trusted each other we made a premeditated decision to lose our virginities together before college. And _trust_ me when I say it happened far away from _you_!"

"Wait…Leo _D'Arcy_? That _faggot_ boy you used to spend time with?"

"Don't you dare use that word in my house, _especially_ in front of her!"

"Oh, so now I'm supposed to believe she's naïve, is that it?"

"Her fathers are gay!"

"Excuse me?"

"They're gay, and they paid me to be their surrogate!"

"_Their WHAT_?"

Shelby's emotions began bubbling through the widening fissures from where she buried them, and she couldn't bear to have her daughter witness it if she lost restraint. And with the ire laying a thick haze on her rational thoughts, she was scared of what she might say because this taxing exchange had been victim of Janet's will for far too long.

"Rachel, please go into the other room and check on Beth."

"Shelby, I—"

"Just do what I say!" Shelby pleaded frantically, and she could feel her chin simultaneously tense and quiver uncontrollably as Rachel reluctantly retreated.

She then spun back around to face Janet, for the sound of the woman's voice was penetrating the tight muscles of her back like thousands of knives as she said, "_Surrogacy_, Shelby? I can't even believe it! How could you _possibly_ do such a thing?"

"I needed the money!" Shelby defended, despite knowing her privileged, upper-middle class mother would never understand. College had drained her of every penny she made prior to returning to Lima and there was no way she could have made it in New York without anything. With her eyes stinging in a way Shelby didn't even comprehend, she further justified, "I wouldn't have done it if I thought giving up my kid would a big deal. I never wanted a baby, and studies showed that most women come out of it feeling great about what they've done…"

"How…" Janet began, her brows furrowed over her fixated gaze. "How could you be so heartless?"

Shelby couldn't even think through if her mother even knew how sensitive of a nerve she was hitting, for it was then that she felt her fortitude completely crumble.

"I'm not!" she cried. "Don't you understand? I wasn't one of those women!"

She suddenly felt weak, for this fault of character was one she had never admitted aloud to anyone. That upsurge of emotion she had discovered earlier broke through the surface just then, not just figuratively but physically too, for the moisture she hadn't even noticed in her eyes spilled over her burning cheeks. She was feeling so sick, startled by how her body was betraying her, but whatever breath she tried taking to ease the pain only came in short, shuddering, choking sobs.

"I fucked up, Ma! I fucked up and loved the baby that I never even wanted! What's more is that I could have fought for her. I could have taken her dads to court and won her if I gave it my all— I was her birth mother no matter what contract I signed. But I didn't!"

"Why not?"

"Because I made a commitment," she moaned wretchedly, hating what she had done to herself so unwittingly so many years ago. She could not have known that it was something that would eat at her for the rest of her life. "And I wouldn't have been able to give her a good life, Mom, even if I wanted to. But those men could have. And did."

Janet's rich, inscrutable eyes continued to watch her relentlessly after that, even as she stumbled over to her piano bench and crashed down on it, her arms wrapping around herself. Despite her attempts to regain a semblance of self-discipline and dignity, the sound of her breathing kept coming out in unattractive gasps and sobs. These were feelings she had been sure she had left behind her but that stupid assumption had only left her pathetic and vulnerable in front of the last person who should have ever seen her like this.

She folded in over herself, her head buried on the arms she had perched on her knees as she cried, and thus was oblivious as her mother approached her slowly. When Janet's dress shoes appeared in Shelby's cloudy vision she tensed, but then she felt the older woman's hand rest gently on her shoulder in a maternal motion that she could never have expected.

Shelby sniffled noisily, sitting up and wiping her face with the base of her palm. She knew she was a wreck, for pretty criers only existed in fiction, but she was beyond a point of vanity. That didn't make it any easier for her to expose herself as she looked up defiantly at her mother.

"Have you told Rachel any of this?"

Janet's voice was no longer screechy or crazed but instead more mild. It seemed out of character for her, but Shelby also knew that the feelings she continually brought out in her mother over the last few years were not all of what the woman was capable.

"No," Shelby mumbled, her face feeling swollen and wet and warm. She sniffled and rubbed over her eyes with her hand. "It wouldn't make any difference."

"Maybe it would," Janet said, and she turned her head and looked purposefully away. Shelby's brow furrowed in confusion and followed the gaze, and to her horror she saw that Rachel was watching them. Her body was mostly hidden against the inside wall of the hallway but her head and one of her hands wrapped around the corner, as though she was using the wall as some sort of crutch. Shelby realized she had no idea how long the girl had been standing there. Her face was unreadable but it was plain that she had heard more than she was supposed to.

Shelby was completely exposed under those brown eyes and she felt cheated. As she struggled to make sense of the harsh emotion, she presumed that she and Rachel had an unspoken understanding that Shelby's personal problems would remain private in an effort to protect their burgeoning relationship. Whether that was true or not, that quickly became what Shelby strongly believed.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be watching your sister!" she shouted emotionally, standing up from the bench so quickly that Janet staggered back a step. She felt unstable in front of them both and unable to endure it anymore she rushed forward, too hurt by Rachel's audience to look at her as she swept by the teenager. Without stopping, even as Rachel's hand reached for her arm, she stormed into her master bedroom and snapped the door shut behind her, weeping again as she shuffled toward Beth's crib and picked her up.

Beth's baby smell was consoling, and Shelby kissed the soft, light hair that graced the child's fragile head. Beth was awake, probably roused by the raised voices in the other room, but she was not upset by them. As Shelby nuzzled against the little girl in her arms, Beth's tiny hands grasped at her face and she gurgled into her pacifier.

It took a minute or two, but at last Shelby felt her heart rate slow and her breathing begin to return to normal. Humming quietly, she ignored the tightness that lingered in her gut and carried Beth over to her bed and carefully dropped down upon the bedspread, her baby a reassuring weight on her chest. Wiping away what she hoped would be the last sticky tear from her cheek, she sighed and stroked the smooth skin of Beth's head with her dry hand, taking pleasure from the feeling of Beth's fingers curling against her face and neck.

The door creaked open a moment later, and Shelby wearily turned her head as Rachel walked in timidly.

"Your mother's gone. We both agreed it would be best if she left."

Shelby felt ashamed, seeing and hearing Rachel so uncertain and knowing it was because of her. Regardless of her eavesdropping, Shelby knew that she should never have raised her voice at Rachel. It meant a lot that the girl came back for her anyway.

It was bizarre to think that only a short time ago they sat together in Shelby's living room and bantered about something as silly as vocal range, or that their afternoon had been shaping up to be so lovely before her doorbell rang. A lot had changed since then.

"Come here," Shelby said softly, and Rachel nodded warily and climbed up on the mattress until she was also lying across it. She was on her side, her head resting on the opposite pillow and her focus on Shelby, but the older woman remained face-up, afraid of the unintended intimacy that now existed between them as a result of her overheard confession. She knew the flush hadn't left her face yet and her eyes were probably rimmed in red, and the part of Shelby that always worked hard to keep a certain professionalism in everything she did was embarrassed that Rachel had to see her like this.

Rachel remained atypically quiet, and because the girl was only 16 years old and more fragile than most, Shelby knew that she had to be the first to fight her insecurities. So she let her arm drop down on the bedspread between them palm up and allowed Rachel's fingers wrap around her opened hand. She squeezed them affectionately.

"Shelby?"

After inhaling a deep breath, Shelby let her face fall towards Rachel's, reluctantly meeting her eyes. After this, she knew that she could no longer pretend as though she was hard. Because she wasn't.

"Is that really how you felt?" Rachel asked, her voice quiet and hesitant, while Shelby frowned slightly in confusion at the vague question. "Part of me still believed that you never wanted me at all."

"Oh sweetie," Shelby muttered, her thumb slowly rubbing over Rachel's smooth skin. "That's not true. Things are just…"

"Complicated," Rachel finished for her. That word that was fast becoming all-too common in their relational discussions, and though Shelby was responsible for most of its utterances she was beginning to hate it. "You told me before that you missed your chance with me. I had assumed that was a generalized comment."

It took Shelby a moment to grasp that Rachel was remembering something she admitted at Regionals. _I missed out on my chance with you and it kills me. _In one of their worst moments, Shelby had to watch Rachel turn away from her, knowing that she thought that statement was Shelby's way of giving up on any hope for them. But Rachel couldn't have known how long she had been living with the guilt of the possibility that, had she been selfish in the months following Rachel's birth, she could have had her.

"Pregnancy, childbirth, it's all confusing stuff," Shelby explained with difficulty. She sighed, knowing this was starting to sound like a copout but she kept going anyway. "My thoughts and moods were all over the place. I'm sure I suffered from some sort of depression – maybe postpartum, I don't know, I never got diagnosed –and I just couldn't get your little face out of my head. But once your dads' check cleared, I was reminded that I had a life of my own to live and plans of stardom I was positive I was still destined for."

Rachel knew how that ended. Her failure on Broadway was an ache that never went away. It was similar to the one that existed in the empty cavity that used to house her uterus, but just like with her dreams of Broadway glory, she had learned to ignore the pain after a while. But that was a wound that never healed either.

"There were a lot of things I could have done differently. But I wouldn't have."

And just like at Regionals, she watched as Rachel's eyes fell away from her own, disappointed once again in what she was hearing. Shelby wasn't going to lie, but no matter what she said her honesty seemed to consistently upset Rachel. At least this time Rachel might have understood that Shelby was grateful that the Berrys had provided her with what she could not: a good home in which she was safe and loved and a wonderful, fulfilled life.

"Did you really love me?"

Shelby exhaled uncomfortably and her voice trembled. "Yes."

"Do you still love me?"

She gripped Rachel's hand tighter in response to the question, but the young girl's brown gaze wouldn't look away. She needed an answer, one that Shelby wasn't ready to share but would anyway. Stupid, fucking integrity. "Yes."

She waited on bated breath to see what would undoubtedly be the ruinous aftermath of her affirmation. Shelby couldn't imagine what Rachel was thinking or feeling, not knowing the girl well enough, but she knew that _she_ was absolutely terrified. It had been years since she allowed herself to be close to anyone. Having been wounded so often by every person she had ever loved, the idea of trusting anyone ever again with her heart was unbearable.

But then Rachel smiled, naturally and meaningfully, with the skin crinkling around her sparkling eyes as she breathed out a shaky, relieved laugh.

Shelby didn't know what she was supposed to do or say as Rachel shifted over so her head rested on the older woman's shoulder. But then she realized she didn't have to do anything. Knowing this made it easier for Shelby to relax against Rachel's head, and she could feel the girl's smile through her blouse. They remained like that for what must have been whole minutes; all the while, the aching of Shelby's chest that she associated with Rachel intensified. But this time it was a good thing. She was finally experiencing the kind of intimacy with her daughter of which she had so long been deprived, both by others and by herself. For the first time in her life she knew how it was possible that anyone could weep from an emotion that wasn't devastating, though she was certain she had already cried herself dry that afternoon.

Beth gurgled, and both she and Rachel looked at her. Rachel's petite hand moved up against Shelby's stomach to tickle the baby's feet, and Shelby was moved to smile when Beth kicked the fingers away, her muffled voice grunting against her pacifier as they the two girls played their game.

After pondering about how she came to be fortunate enough to see this, a sad thought struck Shelby. "My mom didn't even meet Beth."

Rachel tilted her head upward towards her mother, her hand still teasing Beth's foot absentmindedly. "Why is she so mean to you?"

Shelby sighed and her forehead lined despondently. "I somehow manage to bring out the worst in her." The answer wasn't enough for Rachel, however, and Shelby took a breath and stared at the shadows on her textured ceiling as she struggled to find a simple explanation for a situation that was anything but. "…especially now that I've failed to be a star. That was something I had always been determined to pursue in lieu of all of _her_ plans for me. When she first signed me up for piano lessons when I was a kid, she did it because that's what moms did, but she didn't think I'd develop such a passion for music. To her it was just a big waste of time. She probably thought she was looking out for me whenever she discouraged me, but I never listened." Shelby scoffed grimly. "I've always been just as stubborn as she is."

"You're not like her."

Shelby closed her eyes and wished it was true. Rachel's hand flattened against her abdomen and she could sense the girl's eyes boring into her, as though she was trying to force that belief into her. "You're not!"

"No Rachel. I'm just like my mom, and there's nothing I can do about it." She was cold, bitter, pigheaded, sarcastic, remorseless and _hard_. She had had a daughter and didn't know what to do with her so she continually hurt her; it wouldn't be until she had the chance to try again with another daughter that she could even act humanely. Yes, she was her mother's child to a T.

"She's not your mom." The utter conviction in Rachel's voice caused Shelby to stare down at her. "Moms believe in you, help you…_love_ you."

Shelby was stupefied. The implication Rachel was making was so unmistakable and full of confidence that she was sure she had misunderstood it. But then the girl finished softly, assuredly: "That's how I know you're not like her."

Shelby could have argued. There were countless reasons in her mind why she would never be a mom to Rachel, but it was so nice to imagine, even if just for a second, that she was. Was it possible that the moments like this when Rachel believed in her so fully or the ones in which Shelby was willing to drop everything to sew a damn costume were enough to make up for all the time that she missed? There was so much about her daughter that she still didn't understand and the instinct that separated the moms from the mothers was something she was still lacking, judging from how she had allowed Janet to berate Rachel that afternoon. Moreover, instead of consoling her child, Shelby was allowing the girl to comfort _her_. What kind of ass-backwards mother was she?

But she knew from that last factor alone that something was different; they had crossed some borderline. Back months ago as they stood on opposite sides of a piano, Rachel cried and told her that she didn't feel like running into her arms for solace, yet here she was cuddled against her as though there had never been a distinction between mother and mom. That ought to count for something, Shelby thought, surrendering to her strong desire and sliding her arm out from between their bodies so she could hold Rachel close to her chest, just as she was holding Beth. Rachel responded in kind, her small hand wrapping tightly around Shelby's midsection.

She kissed the part in Rachel's hair fondly then rested her cheek on it, breathing in the sweet scent of her shampoo. "Thank you Baby," Shelby said sincerely. They had never been closer, physically or figuratively, and that scared and thrilled her all at once.

She wasn't sure how long they were supposed to lie like this in this comfortable silence, but she'd give the world to stay just as they were. Even if she completely lost feeling in the arm Rachel was using as a pillow, she'd endure it without complaint.

"Shelby?"

"Yes Rachel?"

"Can I ask you something?"

Shelby drew in a breath, suddenly anxious. She didn't know what other mysteries she had within her anymore. She already felt completely exposed. Rachel knew more about her than the woman ever meant to share, from her feelings about the surrogate baby she gave up to her hysterectomy to her own mommy issues and lastly how pathetic she was at 40 years of age. What _else_ could Rachel want to know?

"Did you _really_ have sex with a gay boy?"

Shelby groaned. Rachel giggled.

"Do me a favor—let's save _that_ story for another day."

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**Thank you for reading. I had a couple of people request in the past that I bring Janet back and I couldn't pass it up. I already have a few other ideas for possible stories but if anyone has any suggestions they'd like to see be potential one-shots please feel free to let me know because I consider them seriously. :)**

**Please review!**


	5. Happy New Year

**Hey guys! This is one of the one-shots I had in my head for a long time. I sort of forgot about it until New Years Eve night when I was watching some of my friends illegally set off fireworks in a public park. I started it a couple of different ways until I found a style that I liked, which is definitely more lighthearted than usual. :) ********The only lyric was thrown in last minute and it's from the very song that's named this chapter, but there are a couple of other Easter Eggs just for fun. Enjoy! **

* * *

**Happy New Year**

Taking shots at the mention of the word "New York" on New Year's Eve was certainly a foolish idea, Rachel thought to herself. She should have stopped her parents when she first heard the idea.

"You're really pretty," Rachel suddenly heard in her ear. She turned her head only to see Shelby leaning towards her, staring. Her eyes seemed oddly big as they scanned over her, highlighted by the faint dark makeup she wore, and they weren't blinking much. Shelby never stared like this; it was both flattering and unnerving. Rachel tried not to react as Shelby reached forward to tuck a hair behind her ear affectionately.

It had been her dad's idea to invite Shelby over for the holiday. Since she lived on the opposite side of town, it had been agreed that she should just stay the night, and because she had gone along with the idea of sleeping over one of her daddies convinced her to join them on a bottle of wine. Shelby, in spite of Rachel's dads' theories of her drinking habits, refused to drink if she had to care for baby Beth, which is how Rachel ended up with babysitting her unofficial little sister. It's also how she came to have the attention of a rather inebriated Shelby.

Admittedly, Rachel was partially responsible for her bio mom's current level of drunkenness. After a couple glasses of wine, Rachel started noticing how she didn't seem so uptight, how her laughing became louder and how her stories became longer. Wanting to hear _everything_ about Shelby's Broadway experiences, Rachel was more than happy to keep her glass full, even when they ran out of wine and went for the liquor cabinet.

A few drinks in, Rachel started comparing what her mother was like with and without alcohol. Sober Shelby would only ever scratch the surface of her disappointing Broadway career. Drunk Shelby told colorful tales of chit-chatting and bumping shoulders with future Tony Award winners in the stiff chairs outside of auditions, of making out with casting directors (even after failed auditions) and of years of food poisoning from some of the best-tasting food she had ever had. She described every minute detail of passing Bernadette Peters on the street when they were only a couple theatres away from each other for a short, two-week run, she told of being mugged while camping-out for the last tickets to a sold-out show, of living with four struggling artists in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, and how lonely she would get in the city that never sleeps.

Sober Shelby had to be coerced in to singing around other people. Drunk Shelby burst into song whenever a new one entered her head or played on TV. Sober Shelby would rather eat her own hand than casually talk about her feelings. Drunk Shelby didn't even realize she was doing it. And it's not like Sober Shelby would _ever_ be sitting against Rachel on the couch, petting her head and cooing, "_So_ beautiful. I just love looking at you."

And really, what self-respecting diva-in-the-making wouldn't love hearing that?

"I'm like you," Rachel smiled, reminding her.

"No," Shelby said candidly with a shake of her head while sitting back in the couch cushions and sipping her bourbon (she had insisted on bourbon when the tequila ran out.). "People don't like looking at me. They get nervous. But you don't scare anyone because you're just so pretty and open and happy. Don't ever change, okay? Because you're perfect."

A half an hour ago she wasn't feeling particularly beautiful in her kid's-size cupcake PJs, her hair in a low-slung ponytail and without even a smudge of foundation on her face. But now, even with the hot blush on her cheeks and her estranged mother's creepy eye contact, she couldn't help but feel good about herself. "Thanks Shelby."

Shelby seemed content and went back to watching the countdown on TV. Even after a couple of hours of growing demonstrativeness, Rachel was still speechless by the rush of compliments sent her way and she felt warm inside. Sober Shelby always bottled herself up and Rachel could see her resist saying things she wanted to say for whatever reason – it was always so disappointing – but Drunk Shelby was just so open.

Perhaps it was why she avoided drinking?

When Rachel and Shelby first started spending time together earlier that summer and fall, things were rocky and for good reason: Shelby was downright confusing and rather frustrating to boot. It exhausted Rachel to no end. But her therapist had insisted that she do her best to look at things from Shelby's point of view as often as possible – and with Shelby it was almost always impossible, she was so closed-off – and so she remained patient. Rachel knew her patience paid off halfway through her dads' tequila.

In the morning, Shelby would probably be humiliated and hide again in her figurative reinforced fortress behind her figurative wall, especially if she remembered all of the personal things she shared. Like that sometimes, when she was drifting off out of consciousness with baby Beth in her arms, she would forget where she was and imagine that she was 24 years old again and the baby was Rachel. She let slip that sometimes when she feels sad she looks down at her phone and in hopes that Rachel had texted her that day. She admitted that she constantly struggles to find her role in Rachel's life, that she never really knew whether she should act like a mother, a friend, a sister or just a teacher.

Rachel didn't really feel bad for tricking Shelby into letting go her stubborn inhibitions; sometimes to get what one wants, one has to manipulate the variables. It was just a little liquor. It's not like she was sending someone to a crack house or anything. (She coughed at the memory.)

Beth whined in her arms, reminding Rachel that she was supposed to be trying to feed her. Because of Shelby, she had almost forgotten about the still slightly warm bottle in her hand and she brought it up for Beth to take. Rachel really did like baby Beth. That seemed to come to a surprise to everyone, but really, even though the baby had been Rachel's ex-boyfriend's love child with her arch-nemesis who had tricked the boy she was in love with into thinking that it had been his thus keeping him from pursuing a relationship with _her_, Beth just adored her. All she had to do was open her mouth and Beth's blue eyes were on her like a gold-star sticker to paper. As a future star, it was all Rachel could ask for in a pseudo sister. Also, she could pass on all her of knowledge to the child so that one day she and Beth could take on the world ala Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly—well, without murdering anyone, of course.

Truth be told, the baby was rather boring most of the time. By the time Rachel was her age, she was already winning singing competitions, but at eight or so months Beth was proving to be rather ordinary (no surprise considering the source). Once again Rachel told herself to be patient. She was a hard act to follow. Given that she was already falling behind, Rachel did her best to not compare the two of them lest Beth be doomed to fail from the start. Instead, she simply dedicated herself to helping Beth catch up. The oversaturation of various musical-theatre scores she constantly provided was groundwork for that.

When she had first offered to babysit, she had it all planned out: She'd sing a lullaby, put Beth down for the night and go watch the countdown with everyone else. Turned out having tons of excitement on the big-screen television and three escalating drunks weren't very soothing to the baby, two of whom were currently arguing about Carson Daly like he was a presidential candidate.

"What's got their panties in a bunch?" Shelby asked, pointing her hummus-covered pita (Rachel was in charge of the snacks this year, otherwise her dads would provide nothing but cocktail weenies and cheese cubes to eat) at the gay couple – spaced a couple feet apart from one another – on the other sofa. It was the first point Shelby had even noticed that her dads were acting rather frosty with one another. Rachel shrugged; they had been bickering all day. Shelby rolled her eyes, clearly unsatisfied with Rachel's response, and startled her when she called out to her dads loudly, "Hey! What's got your panties in a bunch?"

The men stopped squabbling and both turned to glare at her for interrupting them as she did.

Shelby's face was all-business. "So? What is it? Did you finally figure out that reality TV is annoying?"

"No!" Daddy pushed his glasses up his nose and sat up straight in his chair to face her properly. "Despite your strong opinions Shelby, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a few episodes of _Say Yes to the Dress_ or some _Millionaire Matchmaker—_"

"Yes there is," Shelby responded bluntly.

"—but regardless, that's not what's upsetting me."

Rachel, suddenly more interested now that Drunk Shelby was involved, watched her dad slump back into the couch cushion with arms crossed and give her papa a dirty look. Papa simply lifted his chin and waved one of his long hands in Daddy's direction as if he were being ridiculous.

Shelby appeared to be bored.

"You're really going to make me ask, aren't you?" she said, raising one of her neat eyebrows as her eyes moved between them. She put her half-eaten pita back down on her paper plate and slapped her hands together a couple times as if to rid them of crumbs. "_Fine_. What, dear Ephraim, is annoying you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

That seemed pretty resolute, so Rachel turned her focus back on the TV's countdown – which was less than ten minutes away from ringing in the New Year – until she heard Shelby say, "That's okay. I'll just ask him then. Thomas, what's eating your boyfriend?"

"You know what? No," Daddy said, shooting forward to the end of his seat with his arms out wide as if he intended on blocking any words between the other two adults. "Let _me_ tell you. Earlier today we were talking about when they have a Lifetime movie about us—"

"If," Papa's deep voice interrupted.

"—who would play us," Daddy finished, his voice tight as he glared at Papa.

"Okay…?"

"Well, I said that guy from _Law and Order: Criminal Intent_, the one who replaced that other one…"

"Wait, which one? The guy from _Independence Day? _And _Jurassic Park?_"

"Yup, that's the one," Papa said with a boorish chuckle.

Rachel was lost; she didn't watch any of these things. Clearly whoever this guy was had never been on Broadway, for none of them were saying so. Rachel was finding herself disappointed in her daddy's choice.

"What's the big deal?"

"Ha, she said '_big_ deal'," Papa laughed heartily, pointing a derisive finger at his partner from the hand wrapped around his glass tumbler. Rachel saw some of the amber liquid slosh over the rim onto his hand but he didn't seem to notice.

"_This_ is why I'm mad!" Daddy said. "He says the actor is too tall to play me! I'm sure that's just his way of saying he's too _handsome_—"

"I keep telling him he's cute, but he thinks this is all about his looks," Papa told Shelby, who was becoming noticeably more entertained by the minute.

"I hate it when you call me 'cute'! I'm a man, dammit!"

"A very short man," Shelby reminded him in a straightforward manner. Daddy flushed angrily at this. "Hey, don't get mad, I'm just saying Tom has a point about the height thing. Get Matty Broderick to play you or something."

"'Matty'?" Rachel quoted, intrigued. She loved _The Producers_!

"We had drinks once," Shelby said hastily, before getting back on point. "Think about it— who cooler than Ferris Bueller? He's _cute—_"

Her mother went on a date with Matthew Broderick and didn't seem to want to brag about it? Would she talk about it if she drank some more? Rachel slid the bourbon bottle closer to Shelby's glass with her foot.

"I should have known you'd take his side," Daddy said huffily. "I'm done talking about this."

Shelby grinned over her shoulder to Rachel. "They get sassy when mixed with whiskey— I love it!"

"Just be quiet and drink, Shelby. They've said 'New York' six times in the amount of time it took you to rudely point out how short and _cute_ I am."

"Bottoms up then," she said, holding up her glass in salute before draining it completely. She grimaced before dropping the cup gracelessly on the coffee table.

Rachel, noticing her daddy's genuine unhappiness, couldn't help but feel bad for him. He was clearly distressed by this whole thing. If it were her, she'd care greatly who would fill her shoes to tell her story in her on-screen biography. In fact, she had already decided that no such girl currently existed in Hollywood worthy of the role, but one day when a young, incredibly talented ingénue with a Barbra-esque nose would come forth looking to prove herself, Rachel knew she'd still be just as careful in choosing as her dad obviously had for this alien- and dinosaur-movie guy.

She didn't even notice Shelby staring at her again until she glanced up to see the countdown pass the two-minute point.

"You okay?" she asked, surprisingly gentle, just before her dad turned up the volume to hear the roaring, excited crowds on screen.

Rachel took a moment to try and articulate what she was thinking. "He just seems really upset by this," she said, looking up at her daddy, who was staring at the screen with a deep frown on his face and his arms crossed tightly against his chest. Her papa was ignoring him too. She occupied herself brushing over Beth's soft curls rather than looking up at her mother's patient face as she muttered, "I just realized I don't want them to fight anymore, not when we're about to start a new year."

"I understand."

The room was silent as they all watched the final minute tick away, but with only ten seconds left, Shelby stood up from her seat, taking a moment to establish her balance, and rounded the coffee table in the direction of her fathers' sofa. Rachel watched in confusion, then in horror, as Shelby unexpectedly dropped herself down on her papa's lap, a wide grin spread across her face, and leaned forward to catch his mouth with her own right as Times Square erupted with a deafening din.

Was she seeing this wrong? Was Shelby Corcoran straddling her papa and _making out_ with him on her living room couch? And was he actually _kissing her back?_ _Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!_

She wasn't saying that out loud, was she?

"What the hell are you doing?" Daddy exclaimed, reaching forward and shoving Shelby's shoulder with enough force to cause himself to fall backward. She merely twisted to look at him, a sly smirk pulling at her lips. Papa looked dazed, clearly still recovering from the surprise smooch, but not revolted at all like he should have been.

"You're supposed to kiss someone at midnight," she said to Daddy casually. She tossed some hair away from her face, her other hand playfully lingering around the back of Papa's head. "Don't be jealous, you get one too."

And before Rachel even processed what had only just happened, Shelby climbed off of Papa and crawled on top of Daddy, her head dipping down to attack his parted mouth eagerly. Rachel was sure Daddy was going to push her away but then, to make matters so much worse, he _also_ responded willingly. His arms snaked up around her torso to pulled her closer as the kiss became more vigorous and Rachel became more nauseous.

_Oh my god_. Rachel covered Beth's eyes with her fingers. No child should witness this; Rachel included, but it was like watching a dreadful audition in that it just was impossible to turn away. The baby seemed to take the hint and curled her head against Rachel's chest, whining slightly as she gripped handfuls of Rachel's top.

"Get your ass off of my man!" Papa growled, knocking the woman off of Daddy so she dropped off the sofa with a "thump" and a winded grunt. Papa, his expression oddly intense, was now the one who hovered over Daddy.

Daddy's breathing was heavy through his exhilarated grin. "Your man, huh?" he said wickedly, grabbing the taller man by his knit lapels and yanking him downward to where Shelby had just been between his legs. They both seemed eager to pick up where she had left them off.

As the two men were hungrily kissing in front of them, the woman in question stood up, straightening her sweater that was pushed disturbingly high up her lean abdomen, and inspected the scene in front of her with an astonishing calmness in the same way Rachel had seen her watch Vocal Adrenaline rehearse. She wiped a finger under her bottom lip to rid herself of any smeared lipstick and seemed satisfied with her work.

Oh my god, was she seeing _tongue?_ Rachel crammed her eyes shut, unwilling to witness any more combinations of her parents making out tonight. Just because she was 16 years old didn't mean she was ready to be privy to this.

"Looks like it's time for bed," Shelby's quiet voice said in front of her, the smell of fermented wheat still lingering on her breath. Beth was suddenly lifted from her lap and Rachel looked up to see Shelby bouncing her baby with a sweet smile. "Come on Rachel, you too."

She held out a hand and pulled Rachel to her feet. Rachel made the mistake of glancing over at her dads who, despite being fully clothed and in front of their daughter, were moving against one another in a way that was entirely too improper for a family room couch. Rachel felt Shelby's hand touch her chin and push it upward, closing the mouth she had no idea had been hanging open.

The teen looked up at her stupidly. "How did—why did—what's—?"

"Gay men are my specialty. Do yourself a favor and fall asleep to some music tonight. Trust me on this one," Shelby said with a wink. "It's going to be a happy new year!"

"Oh gross," Rachel mumbled, stomping her slippered feet slightly as she stormed out behind Shelby and Beth toward the stairs. Even when they arrived at her bedroom doorway, Rachel found she was unable to stop gaping at her mother. "Did you do that all on purpose?"

"You thought it was an accident?" Shelby teased.

"No, I mean, did you actually know what you were _doing_?"

"Oh sweetie," she said in a way that was meant to make Rachel feel naive. She leaned forward and pressed her still slightly reddened lips to her daughter's forehead (was that supposed to be her own New Year's kiss?) in a silent "good night" before she pulled away and made her away across the hall to the guestroom. Rachel stared after her in befuddled amazement. Shelby turned her head in the doorway, her gaze impressively lucid, and chuckled, "I'm not _that_ drunk."

* * *

**Better late than never, right? :)**


End file.
